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LmcoLw AND Seward. 



REMARKS UPON THE MEMORIAL ADDRESS OF CHAS. 

FRANCIS ADAMS, ON TPIE LATE WM. H. 

SEWARD, 



WITH 



mOU)ENTSAXD COiUTENTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF T'lF 

MEASURES AND POLICY OP THE ADMINISTR \ 

TION OF A BRA HA .1/ LIN VOL Y 

AND VIEWS AS TO THE RELATIVE POSITIONS OP THK 

LA TE PRESIDENT A ND SECRET AR Y 

OF ST A TE. 



BY 



GIDEON WELLES, 

mQr8ecretary of the Navy. 



new y o r k : j 
Sheldon & Company. 

1874. 



-(^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1874, by 

SHELDON & COMPATsY, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



ISfEWiilJniUl STKU!-.>T\-py, Co. 



I> E E F A. O E. 



IN submitting the following pages, it is proper that 
the circumstances which led to, and attended their 
preparation, should go out with them. The "Memorial 
Address on the life, character and services of William 
H. Seward," which Mr. Adams delivered at Albany in 
April 1873, by invitation of the legislature of the State 
of New York, attracted general attention, and is a 
document which, if permitted to pass uncorrected, would 
be likely to contribute to, and strengthen false history. 
For a third of a century, Mr. Seward occupied prominent 
positions in his native state, and no inconsiderable space 
in the service of his country. It was appropriate that 
the state which had honored him with its confidence 
while living, should commemorate his death by an 
official observance such as the legislature ordered, and 
Mr. Adams was invited to fulfil. From a variety of 
considerations, the selection of the orator seemed proper ; 
for there was much in his association with the deceased 
to commend it, and it opened a field of historic interest 
worthy of his pen. The extreme of panegyric, if the 
eulogist chose to indulge the partiality of friendship in 
that direction, was allowable and probably expected ; 
but it was not anticipated that the occasion would be 
used to elevate the reputation of the deceased statesman 
at the expense of others, and certainly not by deprecia- 



IV PREFACE. 

tiiio- or iinderratinor the abilities of the President under 
whom lie served. The opportunity might have been 
improved to say a word in vindication of an administra- 
tion which he had represented abroad, and of which IMr. 
Seward w^as a conspicuous member, for it had in the 
embittered contests of the period been greatly maligned, 
misrepresented, and misunderstood. No small disap- 
pointment was experienced to tind the Address pregnant 
with error, and in some respects an indorsement of 
aspersions derogatory to President Lincoln and his 
capacity for the place he had filled, by representing that 
the merits and success of his administration were due, 
not to him, but to the superior intellectual power of the 
Secretary of State. 

My first impression on reading the Address was, that 
the surviving members of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet should 
unite in a general statement correcting the misrepresen- 
tations semi-ofticially put forth at Albany. Such a 
statement from them, brief and decisive, without details, 
would probably have been sufficient to counteract the 
misrepresentations and erroneous assertions of Mr. 
Adams, as to the relative merits, executive ability and 
individual services of the President and Secretary of 
State during Mr. Lincoln's administration. Some cor- 
respondence in regard to such a proceeding took place 
between Messrs. Chase, Blair, and myself, which was 
interrupted by the sudden death of the Chief Justice 
within less than one month after the Address was 
delivered. This event rendered it advisable that some- 
thing more should be done than a mere contradictory 
assertion, or naked statement that Mr. Adams w^as 
mistaken in his estimate of the two men and their 
relative positions to each other, and to their associates 



PREFACE. 



in the administration, as well as to the whole conduct 
of the aftairs of the government. 

Of the eight persons who constituted the Executive 
Council, and administered the government during the 
dark days of our country's December, four, besides the 
two eminent characters adverted to in the Memorial Ad- 
dress, had closed their earthly pilgrimage. Only two mem- 
bers of the Cabinet who first met around that council- 
board, and conferred together through most of the years 
of President Lincoln's Administration, survived to speak 
from personal knowledge of the acts, qualifications and 
services of their chief, and those with whom they had 
been associated in that trying period. 

By special request of Mr. Blair, the duty of stating 
the facts and vindicating Mr. Lincoln and his adminis- 
tration from the errors or inadvertencies of Mr. Adams 
devolved on me. To discharge that duty with fidelity 
was a delicate and embarrassing task, lest in developino- 
the facts in regard to the conduct and measures of the 
administration, and repelling the remarks derogatory to 
President Lincoln, it might seem that injustice was done 
to Secretary Seward, to whom credit as a superior to 
the President in native intellectual power, and in the 
force of moral discipline, and as directing affairs in the 
President's name, had been awarded. But while main- 
taining for Mr. Lincoln greater executive ability, I 
would withhold no just fame from Mr. Seward, whose \ 

versatile and prolific mind, if less persistent and reliable, 
less capable of establishing and enforcing a policy, less 
capable of grasping great questions and successfully 
wielding the highest functions of government, was 
nevertheless in his position, active, industrious and use- 
ful. If disclosures of the truth dispel prevailing error, 



Vi PREFACE. 

let it not be supposed that wrong is thereby done to a 
colleague for whom I had great personal regard. 

Undoubtedly both Mr. Adams and Mr. Seward 
believed in 1860, that Mr. Lincoln possessed neither the 
abilities nor qualifications to perform the duties of 
Chief Magistrate, and that he would consequently be 
governed by some leading member of his Cabinet. It 
was assumed by them, and indeed by others, that the 
Secretary of State would be that leading member and 
President, de facto. Mr. Seward after a brief experience, 
learned his mistake. Mr. Adams never did — nor does 
it appear that Mr. Seward, in their intimate personal 
and official correspondence undeceived or enlightened 
the Minister during his absence from the country, 
covering the entire presidency of Mr. Lincoln. Besides, 
a class of partisans in all that time busied themselves in 
affirming and inculcating the false impression that Mr. 
Seward was the actual Executive. John Wilkes Booth, 
like Mr. Adams was deceived by it, and hence in his 
scheme to overturn and destroy the government, he 
deemed it essential to make Mr. Seward, as well as the 
President a victim. The murderous attempt of a crazy 
fanatic, gave strength to the delusion which partisans 
had promulgated. Sympathy for the survivor of that 
terrible catastrophe, who, wounded and mangled, escaped 
the knife of the assassin, seemed to identify him more 
closely with his chief who had been slain, and, tempo- 
rarily at least, added to the delusion which finds en- 
dorsement and is embodied in the Memorial Address. 

In the following pages I have confined my remarks 
as far as possible, to the acts, views and transactions of 
the President and Secretary of State and measures of 
administration during the presidency of Mr. Lincoln. 
Allusions to other periods, or to the private life or 



TREFACE. VU 

peculiar characteristics of either, except as preliminary 
or essential to a correct understanding of their of][icial 
career, and political principles have been avoided. In 
stating the views and policy of Mr. Lincoln, it has been 
no part of my purpose to discuss the labors or services 
of Mr. Seward, other than those which relate to the 
administration of which he was a member, not the chief. 
Whatever estimate may be put upon his abilities — 
whatever resemblance there may have been between 
him and the renowned men of antiquity, or the distin- 
guished statesmen of our own country of a past genera- 
tion, or whatever may have been his experience in 
other years, and in different fields of public, professional, 
or social life, are proper matters of eulogy, but foreign to 
the purpose of these remarks. 

Incidents and measures which occurred, better than 
statements or assertions, will disabuse the public mind 
and more truly than mere declarations develop the 
characteristics of the men and the workings of the 
administration. I have therefore selected certain cases 
on different topics, which denote the ideas, executive 
ability and principles of government of the President 
and Secretary of State on questions of public policy. 
They also indicate the actual relation in which they 
stood to each other, and their associates in the Cabinet. 
The cases mentioned relate to by-gone measures which 
have been adjusted or disposed of, and are parts of the 
recorded, though to some extent, unpublished history 
of the country and times. 

The remarks on the Address as originally prepared 
were too voluminous for a ^Magazine. I therefore con- 
densed and reduced them to three papers which ap- 
peared in the Galaxy for October, November and 
December 1873. The reception of those papers by the 



Vlll PREFACE. 

public, led the publishers and others to request that the 
numbers which had appeared, and the whole of the 
omitted portions with attending details and such 
additions as I thought proper, might be embodied in a 
volume, whi.ch is herewith submitted. 

G. W. 



Mb. Lincoln asd Mk. Seward. 



T 



T is to be regretted that Mr. Charles Francis 
Adams, in his "Memorial Address on the Life, 
Character, ' and Services of William H. Seward," 
should have permitted himself to do injustice to Abra- 
ham Lincoln. Any attempt to canonize Mr. Seward 
by detracting from the merits of his chief weakens 
the encomiums bestowed. Mr. Adams has claims to 
consideration by reason of his talents, acquirements, 
social position, and public service ; but his estimate 
of the character, capacity, executive ability, and rela- 
tive position of the Chief Magistrate and his Secretary 
of State betrays a want of just discrimination and cor- 
rect knowledge of each. A greater error could scarce- 
ly be committed than to represent that Mr. Lincoln 
*'*had to deal with a superior intelectual power" when 
he came in contact with Mr. Seward. The reverse 
was the fact. In mere scholastic acquirements " Mr. 
Seward, never a learned man," may have had the ad- 
vantage, thouo-h in this respect there was less differ- 

t5 •111 

ence than is generally supposed; while "in breacltii 
of philosophical experience and in the force of moral 
discipline" the almost self-taught and reflective mind 



8 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

of Mr. Lincoln, which surmounted diflSculties and dis- 
advantages that his Secretary never knew, conspicuous- 
ly excelled. In the executive council and in measures 
of administration the Secretary had influence, not 
always happily exercised ; but the President's was the 
master mind. It is empty panegyric to speak of the 
Secretary of State as chief, or to say his suggestions, 
save in his own department, were more regarded or 
had even greater influence than those of others. His 
restless activity, unceasing labors, showy manifesta- 
tions, and sometimes incautious exercise of ques- 
tionable authority which the President deemed it 
impolitic to disavow, led to the impression, which Mr. 
Adams seems also to have imbibed, that the subordi- 
nate was the principal, and have induced him, to use 
his own words, to " award to one honors that clearly 
belong to another." 

Far be it from me to deroo^ate in the least from the 
merits and services of Mr. Seward, for I was a witness 
to his assiduity, and to some extent a participant and 
coadjutor with him in the labors and trials that the 
Administration encountered in troublous times. But 
it was not necessary in stating his merits, even in 
eulogy, to undervalue and misstate the worth, services, 
and capabilities of the remarkable man who was at 
the helm and guided the Government through a 
stormy period. Unassuming and unpretentious him- 
self, Mr. Lincoln was the last person to wear borrowed 
honors. He was not afflicted with the. petty jealousy 
of narrow minds, nor had he any apprehension that 
others would deprive him of just fame. He gave to 
Mr. Seward, as to each of his council, his generous 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 9 

confidence, and patiently listened, if he did not always 
adopt or assent to the suggestions that were nmde. 
To those who knew Abraham Lincoln, or who were at 
all intimate with his Administration, the representation 
that he was subordinate to any member of his Cabinet, 
or that he was deficient in executive or administrative * 
ability, is absurd. Made on a solemn occasion as was 
this address, and published and sent out to the world in 
a document which purports to be not only eulogistic but 
historic, it is essential that the errors thus spread abroad 
should be corrected. Mr. Adams had not an intimate 
acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln, and evidently but a 
slight general knowledge of his character. With ad- 
- mitted great disappointment and disgust, he, in May 
f 186j^ received the intelligence that this lawyer, legis- 
lator, and political student of the praries, whom he did ^) 
not know and with whom he had not associated, had 
been preferred by the Kepublican representatives at 
Chicago over a Senator from the Empire State with 
whom he was intimate and familiar, who had long 
ofificial experience, which he seems to have considered 
essential, was acquainted with legislative management, 
and whose -political and party sympathies accorded 
with his own. His prejudices as well as his partiality 
were excited, and from the beginning he misconceived 
the character and undervalued and underrated the ca- 
pabilities and qualities of one of the most sagacious and 
remarkable men of the ao-e. 

In his statements of the political career of Mr. 
Seward, and of the structure and condition of parties 
from the days of the Monroe administration, one is 
compelled to believe the eulogist has, as he expresses 



10 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

it, plunged in "the Serbonian bog of obsolete party 
politics." Yet politics and parties are an essential part 
of the history of the country, its men and the times, and 
the author himself has made politics the study of his life. 
Mr. Seward was also emphatically a party politician. 
He had a fondness for political studies and employment, 
and was at all times active and faithful in the service 
of each of the several political parties to which he be- 
lono^ed. Whether " the chief characteristic of his mind 
was its breadth of view " may be questioned by some 
who look to his general course and form their opinion 
of his ''characteristics " from it and his acts. If not, 
as is asserted, a " philosopher studying politics," he 
was kind and affable, of a genial temperament, calm and 
subdued under reverses, and to his credit never mani- 
fested the malevolence and acerbity which too often char- 
acterize intense political partisans. Among his party as- 
sociates he always occupied a decidedly prominent place, 
by reason of his sociability and urbanity as well as of 
his ability. He was quick of apprehension, prolific in 
suggestions and expedients, and endowed, if not with 
eloquence or a commanding presence, with a readiness 
and facility of expression in speech or writing which 
enabled him in consultations, and when associated with 
others, to carry personal influence equal to any, and 
much greater than most of his contemporaries. He 
had not, however, an executive mind which could of 
itself magnetize and subordinate others, or the mental 
strength to take the helm and steadily guide and direct 
the policy of the government or of a party. Henry 
Clay once said, " Mr. Seward is a man of no convic- 
tions.** This may not have been strictly true, yet he 



MK. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 11 

was not a man of fixed principles, whose convictions 
would not yield to circumstances or be modified by ex- 
pedients, some of which might be scarcely worthy of 
consideration. He could be as tenacious as any in ad- 
hering to a measure or policy so long as his associates, 
or those friends in whom he trusted, maintained the 
position ; but alone, he had not the will, self-reliance, 
and obstinancy to plant himself on the rock of princi- 
ple, meet the storm, and abide the consequences. 

Mr. Seward was a politician — a partisan politician 
of the central school — with talents more versatile than 
profound ; was more of a conservative than a reformer, 
with no great original conceptions of right, nor sys- 
tematic ideas of administration. So far as his party 
adopted a reforming policy he went with it, and he 
was with it also in opposing actual reforms by the 
Democrats. The representation that he was a veteran 
reformer, or the leader of the anti-slavery movement 
or of the Republican party, is a mistake. He was 
neither an Abolitionist nor a Free-soiler, nor did he 
unite with the Republicans until the Whig party 
virtually ceased to exist in most of the states, and was 
himself one of the last to give up that party, of which 
he had been from its commencement and in all its 
phases an active member. It was with reluctance ho 
finally yielded, when the feeble remnant of that organi- 
zation disbanded. The Republican party, with which 
he then became associated, was not of mushroom 
growth. It was years maturing. Mr. Seward, whose 
friends claim for him its paternity, was a AVliig at its 
inception. He neither rocked its cradle nor identified 
himself with its youth, 1 ut gave it cheering words, as 



12 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

he had other ephemeral organizations, in order to 
weaken the Democrats and help tlie Whigs. Faithful 
to party, he adhered to the Whigs nnder all circum- 
stances. It was his marked public characteristic. 
Not until the Whig party was prostrate — a skeleton 
without strength or vitality — did he yield and embark 
his political fortunes in the great uprising. In the 
destruction of the political scalfolding which he and 
his friends had constructed, perished the hopes and 
labors of years. To relinquish the machinery and 
organization which by lobby management under a 
skilful leader had become powerful and controlling in 
the Empire State of the Union, was a sacrifice not 
willino:lv made, and when made it was not in the anti- 
slavery interest, but with a covert design to perpetu- 
ate the Albany dynasty under the name of Republican. 
The Albany lobby was never an abolitionist lobby or 
an anti-slavery lobby, nor was the organization or its 
candidate. Any attempt to represent hjm, or those 
associated with him, as occupying a more advanced 
position on the anti-slavery question than those who 
were of the " Jefferson school," is rather eulogy than 
fact. In the presidential contest of 1848, when the 
domination of previously existing parties was broken, 
and a stand was made against the expansion of slavery 
and its extension into the territories from which it had 
been excluded, Mr. Seward delined to connect himself 
with the Free-soil or Anti-slavery cause, but clung to 
the Whig party which opposed the movement, and 
voted for a candidate who was a slave-owner in prefer- 
ence to a statesman and citizen of his own State who 
was not. 



MK. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 13 

According to Mr. Adams, " the origin of the divis- 
ion of parties which prevailed for more than thirty 
years," began about the close of the first quarter of 
the present century, soon after the adoption of the 
Missouri compromise, consequently in tlie opening 
years of Mr. Seward's manhood and political life. 
" At the outset of Mr. Seward's career," says the ad- 
dress, " the first thing necessary for him to do was 
to choose his side. Under his father's roof the in- 
fluences naturally carried him to sympathize with the 
old Jeffersonian party on the one hand, while the 
relics of the slave system remaining: in the familv as 
house-servants, the least repulsive form of that rela- 
tion seemed little likely to inspire in him much aver- 
sion to it on the other. Nevertheless he early formed 
his conclusions adversely to the organization in New 
York professing to be the successors of the Jefferso- 
nian school, and not less so to the perpetuation of 
slavery any where. The reason for this is obvious. 
With his keen perception of the operation of genei'al 
principles he penetrated at once the fact that the resur- 
rection in this form of the old party was not only hol- 
low but selfish. It looked to him somewhat like a close 
corporation made for the purpose of dealing in popular 
doctrines, not so much for the public benefit as for 
that of the individual directors. Moreover it became 
clear that among those doctrines, that of freedom to 
the slave was rigorously excluded by reason of the bond 
of union entered into with his master at the south. 
In reality, he was in principle too democratic for the 
democrats. Hence he wai2:ed incessant war ao^ainst 



14 MK. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWAKD. 

this form of oligarchy down to the hour when it was 
finally broken up." 

In addition to this fact or fancy sketch, Mr. Adams 
says that in a Fourth of July oration delivered by Mr. 
Seward at Auburn w^hen he was twenty-four years old, 
he ma.dG '^ the delihe}^ate claim of a right in the Fed- 
eral goverwinent to emanGipate slaves hy legislation,^^ 
and that " in his conclusions he proved a prophet." 
Jefferson, though sincerely opposed to slavery, was not 
of the prophets or politicians who made claim to any 
such right in the Federal government. Had he made _ 
such claims, or believed that there was any such author- 
ity or principle in the government, his love of freedom 
was so great, and his principles and convictions so 
abiding he would never have advised its relinquish- 
ment, or consented that the government and people 
should be forever bound by a fundamental law incor- 
porated into the constitution and made unrepealable 
prohibiting legislation through all time^ whatever^ in 
the progress of human affairs might be the opinions and 
wishes of the people. But Mr. Seward who we are 
told " waged incessant war against this form of oligar- 
chy down to the hour when it was finally broken up," 
was ready when sixty years old to manacle Congress 
and, so far as the Federal government was concerned, 
to consign the slaves to perpetual bondage. In his 
carefully elaborated and celebrated speech delivered on 
the twelfth of January 1861, he said : " I am willing 
/ to vote for an amendment to the constitution declar- 
f ing that it shall not, by any future amendment, be so 
' altered as to confer on Congress a power to abolish 
\ or interfere with slavery in any state." It is for the 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 15 

author of the Memorial Address who speaks of inces- 
sant war against the slave-oligarchy down to the hour 
when it was finally broken up, to reconcile the claim 
put forth by Mr. Seward when twenty -four years old, 
that the Federal government had a right to emancipate 
by legislation, with his willingness after forty years 
experience and study of the government, to surrender 
any such claim or right forever. 

The disposition of the financial and tariff questions 
which for years divided parties under renowned lead- 
ers, and the Mexican war with its results during the 
Polk administration, afiected the political status of 
individuals and also the organization of parties. Clay, 
Calhoun, and Webster, the intellectual and imperious 
triumvirate who combined against Jackson fifteen 
years before, were each infirm from increasing years, 
and on the descending grade of life and infiuence. In 
1849 they retained, individually, but a feeble hold on 
their followers. Yan Buren and Benton were no 
longer formidable. With the departure of old ques- 
tions, the old contestants were passing away. It was 
just at this period, when old political parties were in 
a fragmentary and transition state, that Mr. Seward 
first entered the national councils as a Senator from 
the great State of New York. No time could have 
been more propitious or circumstances more fixvorable 
for a genuine reformer — a statesman of mental grasp 
and real executive talent, sincere in his convictions and 
wedded to principle, with the advantage of high 
position, to have gathered up, concentrated and organ- 
ized the disturbed political elements which were dis- 
satisfied with government abuses and central aggres- 



16 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

sive power in behalf of an institution which was toler- 
ated but disliked, and its extension and aggressions 
resisted. This was an opportunity for a statesman, in 
place if possessed of the indispensable executive ability, 
to have made himself the leader of a great movement. 
But Mr. Seward did not prove himself equal to the posi- 
tion. He was still a Whig and failed to raise the stand- 
ard and rally the host. In opposing the assumptions 
of a civil aggression, he was one with others, not their 
superior nor their chief. Though quick of apprehen- 
sion and not insensible to the new aspect of afiairs and 
the change that was taking place, he had neither the 
resolution nor the inclination to abandon his party, 
" break up the remnants of party ties," and place him- 
self at the head of a popular demonstration for immor- 
tal principles. He had been a life-long party follower 
— had trod the paths and ruts of party obediently and 
faithfully, cmd been so trained and disciplined, so 
accustomed to look up to others to decide and lead, 
that no will or independence Avas left him at fifty to 
take the initiative in a new departure. He had the 
sagacity to see that new questions were entering into 
our politics and old ones were becoming obsolete, but 
possessed not the courage to abandon the old, nor the 
organizing and executive talent to become the chief in 
a new movement. Contrary to good instruction and 
sound principle, he and the Albany managers at- 
tempted to put this new Kepublican wine into old 
Whig bottles, under the delusive idea that the effete 
and decaying Whig organization could receive and 
hold this fermenting political element without burst- 
ing. He made able speeches on the rising questions, 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 17 

as did others; but the Senate produced no command- 
ing mind, with " clarion voice" and magnetic power, 
to rally and lead. Mr. Seward had adventitious 
advantages above others which his associates felt and 
conceded. He had been Governor of the largest 
State in the Union, was its representative in Congress, 
and stood the peer of any of his associates on the floor 
of the Senate, but only the peer. Neither in Con- 
gress nor subsequently in the Cabinet did he display 
the administrative or executive talent that was antici- 
pated, or which partisan admirers claim for him at 
the expense of Mr. Lincoln. 

In closino^ his " Memorial Address" Mr. Adams 
alludes to the friends of Mr. Seward, and particularly 
one who survives, " whose singularly disinterested 
labor has been to effect the elevation of others to 
power, and never his own ; and to whose remarkable 
address I strongly suspect Mr. Seward owed many- 
obligations of that kind." jSTo person in the least con- 
versant with the two men could have heard or read the 
address without a conviction, even if no acknowledg- 
ment had been made, that the spirit of the friend 
inspired and imbued the orator with the partialities, 
prejudices, misconceptions, and errors which pervade 
the address and are manifest on almost every page. 

Mr. Thurlow Weed, who for forty years was the 
ruling mind of the party with which he was associated 
in ISTew York, possessed remarkable qualities as a party 
manager. The character and services of Mr. Seward 
can never be delineated or understood without mention 
of this alter ego, who was not only his fidus Achates, 
but it may without disparagement be said was also. 



18 MR. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWAED. 

with some radical failings, his Mentor. Mr. Weed, a 
man of strong, rough native intellect, without much 
early culture, was a few years the senior of Mr. Seward, 
whose more polished and facile mind adapted itself to 
the other — clung to it as the ivy to the oak — and the 
two became inseparable in politics. When Mr. Seward 
was about to '' choose his side,'' Weed was the editor 
of a paper in western N^ew York, which fomented the 
wild, fanatical, and proscriptive antimasonic excite- 
ment that for a brief period swept with uncontrollable 
and unreasoning fury that section of country. An 
organized party was formed on the narrow basis of 
hate, intolerance, and proscription of every man who 
belonged to the Masonic fraternity, every one of 
whom was to be excluded from office, from the jury- 
box and all places of trust. Under this anti-masonic 
banner, of which Weed was a champion leader, Mr. 
Seward enlisted and commenced his public official 
career, was its candidate in that district, and elected 
by that party to the Senate of New York. Many will 
believe that he did not manifest great "breadth of 
view," nor prove himself a profound "philosopher 
studying politics," nor display the "capacity to play a 
noble part on the more spacious theatre of State 
affairs," when he entered the Senate of New York an 
anti-masonic partisan under the guidance of Thurlow 
Weed. But the friendship commenced under those 
auspices continued unabated to the death of the junior, 
and evinces itself in the " Memorial Address" which 
attempts to place Mr. Seward above the President to 
whom he was subordinate, and " award to him honors 
that clearly belong to another." 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 19 

Mr. Weed possessed capacity which rightly direct- 
ed might have been of service to the country and to 
mankind. He was not without good qualities when 
party and personal favorites or opponents were not 
concerned ; but he was wanting in political morality, 
and was unscrupulous in his party intrigiies — often 
and without hesitation resorting to schemes to carry a 
measure in the Legislature, or to secure an election, 
which scarcely savored of political or moral honesty. 

When the anti-masonic fervor subsided and the 
organization died out, Messrs. Seward and Weed be- 
came identified with the opponents of tlie Jackson ad- 
ministration and the supporters of '' the American 
system" — a centralizing policy. The address repre- 
sents that " the political unity of the country under its 
present form of government naturally divides itself 
into two periods of nearly equal length.'' One, which 
commenced with Washington and closed with Monroe, 
related chiefly to questions of foreign policy. The 
other was on the subject of slavery. There is no such 
natural division. The statement is neither politically 
nor historically correct, but an arbitrary assumption, 
warranted by neither history nor facts. The slavery 
question in no form or shape entered into the election 
or administration of General Jackson or the great 
parties of that period. Other absorbing subjects, re- 
lating to the bank, to finance, to the tariff and internal 
improvements, combined under what in the party no- 
menclature of the day was styled the '* American sys- 
tem,'' were the political and party issues for a quarter 
of a century succeeding the Monroe administration. 
It was then, '' at the outset of Mr. Seward's career," 



20 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

when there was no controversy or difference in State 
or national parties or politics on the subject of slavery 
that Weed and '' the philosopher studying politics," 
chose their side, opposed Jackson, supported Clay, ad- 
vocated a national bank, a protective tariff, internal 
improvements by the federal government, and the 
whole centralizing *' American system.'' There was 
no identification of either of the great opposing par- 
ties of that day with slavery or anti-slavery. From 
1828, when Jackson was elected, to the election of 
Taylor in 1848, neither party made the subject of sla- 
very a test question, or part of its political creed. Op- 
position to General Jackson and his administration, 
and to the policy initiated under him, to state rights 
and constitutional limitations, combined the adverse 
elements and was the ground-work of the Whig party, 
to which in all its phases Mr. Seward was a devoted 
adherent. A coalition was formed by the Whigs with 
the nullitiers, who were slave-holders, and at a later 
day secessionists, against the patriotic old chieftain 
who put forth the executive power for the mainte- 
nance of the federal union. But the tariff, not sla- 
very, was the pretext for nullification, and opposition to 
the administration was the apology for a compromise 
in which both the protectionists and nullifiers surren- 
dered each their principles. 

Then, and until some time past the meridian of his 
life — a period of more than twenty years — Mr. Seward 
was, for reasons doubtless satisfactory to himself, one 
of the most zealous and active party men in the coun- 
try. With him every side-issue, every controverted 
question, every element of discontent against the gov- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MK. SEWARD. 21 

eminent, was courted, fanned, favored, and made subser- 
vient to party. This embraces the period when, accord- 
ing to the address, Mr. Seward chose his side adversely 
to the organization of the Jefferson school, was '' too 
-democratic for the Democrats," was *' far more practi- 
cal than anjtliing ever taught by Jefferson." This pe- 
culiar democj'acy and anti-masonry constitute what the 
address describes as " the various phenomena of Mr. 
Seward's public life," but which his contemporaries 
understood to be political partnership of a very active 
and decided character. In New York and throughout 
the country Mr. Seward was known and recognized as 
a busy and efficient party man in the Whig organiza- 
tion, and one of the leaders to whom the party in that 
state was under obligation for partisan services. His 
sphere of influence was limited to his state, for beyond 
its borders the corrupt Albany lobby led and managed 
by Weed was detested by the Democrats and dis- 
trusted by the Whigs themselves. Whatever abilities 
or qualities of mind he possessed — and they were in 
some respects remarkable — were given earnestly and 
cheerfully to that party and its centralizing " Ameri- 
can system " policy. In their party councils in 'New 
York, Thurlow Weed became the supreme manager, 
and guiding, controlling spirit, always declining office. 
Mr. Seward was the orator or oracle, and received the 
official honors. When anti-masonry was on the wane, 
and after Mr. Seward entered the New York Senate, 
Weed removed to Albany, where he established a 
paper and exercised with skill and eft'ect his love of 
intrigue. He soon organized and became chief of a 
lobby which had an odious notoriety, and which, while 



22 ME. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

it gave him a certain influence in New Yoi k, was 
viewed with abhorrence by many, with distrust by the 
whole country. His management w^as, however, 
adroit ; and the lobby under his direction, though 
often profligate, unscrupulous, and always debauching 
and corrupting, contributed at times largely to the suc- 
cess of his party and the promotion of Mr. Seward. 
The personal influence of Weed was enhanced and made 
eflfective by his apparent self-abnegation and uniform 
and persistent refusal to accept any office himself, 
while all around him were seeking office and legisla- 
tive favors. His laboi'S were not as disinterested as 
represented ; for if he declined place he loved power, 
and it was his pride and ambition to manage the gov- 
ernment of New York when the Whigs were success- 
ful and in the ascendant, to say who might hold office, 
to control measures, and to prescribe the policy and 
direct the movements of his party — not always pei'haps 
judiciously or honestly in either respect ; "but the ad- 
ministration in that State, its measures and men, were 
nevertheless his. The mental force, magnetism, sys- 
tem, and will of the man were artful, but imperious 
and indisputable with his party, yet were shrewdly 
and in general discreetly exercised. Mr. Seward, ever 
preadvised and consulted, was his exponent in the Le- 
gislature and in party councils, and the advocate or op- 
ponent of the measures and men as prescribed, with 
his concurrence by Weed. Although the latter never 
sought office for himself, he always wanted high place 
for Seward, who w^as his cherished and almost idolized 
political offspring, with whom he never disagreed, and 
who never went counter to him. The two always 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 23 

acted in concert. It was interesting to witness their 
joint operations. AVeed's mind had by far the greatest 
vigor, Seward's the most pliability. It was so in their 
anti-masonic days. It was so to the close. Weed's 
apparently disinterested labors were selfish, yet given 
with devoted and nnsparing fidelity to his friend 
Seward, who might wear the honors while he was the 
substantial power behind. Their ideas of government 
were always personal, when their party was in power 
they were the state. Mr. Adams '' strongly suspects 
Mr. Seward owed many obligations " to Mr. Weed. 
It was never suspicion among those who knew them, 
but an unquestioned and indisputable fact. Mr. Sew- 
ard himself acknowledged it with apparent satisfiiction. 
I once heard him declare, others being present, " Sew- 
ard is Weed and Weed is Seward. What I do, Weed 
approves. What he says, I endorse. We are one." 
" I am sorry to hear the remark," said the late Chief 
Justice Chase^ " for while I would strain a point to 
oblige Mr. Seward, I feel under no obligations to do 
anything for the special benefit of Mr. Weed. The 
two are not and never can be one to me." 
Mr. Adams declares, as historical truth : 

"The fact is beyond contradiction that no person 
ever before nominated, with any reasonable probability 
of success had so little of public service to show for his 
reward. . . . The President elect was [m the winter of 
1861] still at home in Illinois giving no signs of life. . . 
That which appeared most appalling was the fact that 
we were to have for our guide through this perilous 
strife a person selected partly on account of the absence 
of positive qualities, so far as was known to the public, 



24: MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

and absolutely without the advantage of any experience 
in national affairs, beyond the little that can be learned 
by an occupation of two years in the House of Repre- 
sentatives It was clear, at least to me, that our 

chance of success would rest upon an executive council 
composed of the wisest and most experienced men that 
could be found. So it seemed absolutely indispensable 
on every account that not only should Mr. Seward have 
been early secured in a prominent post, but that his 
advice at least should have been asked in regard to the 
completion of that organization. But Mr. Lincoln as 
yet knew little of all this. His mind had not even 
opened to the nature of the contest. From his secluded 
home in the heart of Illinois, he was only taking meas- 
ure of his geographical relations and party services, and 
beginning his operations where others commonly leave 
off, at the smaller end. Hence, it was at quite a late 
period of the session before he had disclosed his inten- 
tion to put Mr. Seward in the most prominent place. . . . 
It is the duty of history, in dealing with all human 
events, to do strict justice in discriminating between 
persons, and by no means to award to one honors that 
clearly belong to another. I must then affirm, without 
hesitation, that in the history of our government, down 
to this hour, no experiment so rash has ever been made 
as that of elevating to the head of affairs a man with so 
little previous preparation for his task as Mr. Lincoln. 
.... Mr. Lincoln could not fail soon to perceive the 
fact that whatever estimate he might put on his own 
natural judgment, he had to deal with a superior in 
native intellectual power, in extent of acquirement, in 
breadth of philosophic experience, and in the force of 
moral discipline. On the other hand, Mr. Seward could 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 25 

not Iiave been long blind to the deficiencies of his chief 
in these respects." 

Those who read and give credit to these represen- 
tations, and others of similar purport through the 
address, will receive very erroneous impressions of the 
two men to whom they relate, as well as of the admin- 
istration to which they belonged, and in which each 
bore an important part. It was not Mr. Lincoln 
who conformed himself and his policy and general 
views to Mr. Seward, but it was Mr. Seward who 
adapted himself with ease and address to Mr. Lincoln, 
and, fliiling to influence, adopted and carried out the 
opinions and decisions of his chief. In that respect — 
flexibility and facility of change among friends — no 
person possessed greater dexteritj^ and tact than the 
Secretary of State. It made him a pleasant assistant, 
companion, and coadjutor ; but his character not being 
positiv nor his convictions absolute, he was not 
alway reliable, being deficient in executive will and 
abilil . Mr. Lincoln, who is represented as ignorant 
of the condition of the country when elected, and 
'' whose mind had not yet opened to the nature of the 
crisis,'' better understood, if we may judge from what 
they did, the popular sentiment and the public require- 
ments than senator or representative, ambassador or 
cabinet minister. In his " secluded home" he was not 
an inattentive and indifferent observer, but watched 
and studied public measures and public necessities, and 
more correctly appreciated the actual condition of 
affairs than the heated politicians engaged in frictions 
strife for party ascendency m the national and state 



26 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

capitals. While statesmen and legislators of '^expe- 
rience " in Congress were waiting and watching for 
new appointments, neglectful of the coming storm, 
anticipating apparently little else than a severe party 
conflict, " utterly withont spirit'' to concert measures 
— exhausting their time and energies in frivolous 
wragnles, and accomplishing nothing — with confessedly 
'* no leader at hand equal" to the emergency — the 
President elect, "in the heart of Illinois," compre- 
hended the situation, and rose above merely personal 
and party contentions to the dangers, necessities and 
political condition of the country. Wholly powerless, 
however, he was compelled to witness without being 
able to prevent the disintegration in progress, and the 
accumulating embarrassments that were soon to con- 
front him, withont a single effective demonstration 
from any of his professed friends in Congress, who 
prided themselves on their superiority, and on an 
official " experience'' in which they deemed him defi- 
cient, but which experience they considered indispen- 
sable for a competent executive. Of what value was 
the " experience" of senator or representative in that 
crisis ? What executive or legislative ability did they 
exhibit ? Experience rightly improved is valuable in 
public official life, but it is not to be denied that it 
often blunts the mind, and by familiarizing with, ren- 
ders it indifferent to evil. 

The two great parties of Democrat and Whig were 
in their day scarcely more apart in their character or 
more diverse in their purposes than the opposing ele- 
ments which met in convention at Chicao:o in 1860. 
It was by no means a personal contest as represented. 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 27 

Mr. Adams seems unconscious of the fact that there 
were among Republicans, and in that convention, con- 
flicting views and policies ; that a majority was oppo- 
sed to corrupt legislation and the vicious schemes of 
managing lobbies, whether at Albany or Washington, 
as well as hostile to the extension and aggression of 
slavery. It was the misfortune of Mr. Seward that he 
was associated with and the candidate of the most of- 
fensive lobby combination of that date. He was not 
accused or suspected of receiving pecuniary benelit 
himself from the practices of that class of jobbing par- 
ty lobbyists, but he was thought to be indifferent if 
not assenting to their practices, and was their candi- 
date. They were active in his favor, were conspic- 
uously instrumental in pressing him forward as the 
coming man, announcing him as the Republican candi- 
date, and used extraordinary means to secure delegates 
to the nominating convention in his interest. These 
party managers had, like Mr. Seward, adhered to the 
"Whio^ organization so lons^ as it existed. After its 
abandonment they became active members of the Re- 
publican party, and strove to be foremost in all its pro- 
ceedings. But there was a large element — the result 
showed a very decided majority — of the Republicans 
averse to any nomination or movement which would 
tend to transfer Albany intrigues to Washington, and 
introduce the debasing practices on the Hudson into 
our national politics. 

When the convention met at Chicago, the Albany 
programme and management were obvious. New 
York and Michigan, under the Whig machinery which 
with all its appliances was still in force in those states 



28 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

thongli under the name of Republicanism, pushed sol- 
idly for their candidate. Massachusetts was supposed 
to have been as thoroughly attended to, but a small 
minority dissented and went with the majority of the 
states and delegates from Kew England in opposition 
to Mr. Seward. These three states constituted his 
substantial strength, but under Albany manipulation 
and management some of the small frontier and bor- 
der states, and the territories which were introduced 
and permitted to vote in convention, though they could 
not in election, added to his force, and gave him, as 
the address states, a plurality on the first ballot. A 
second ballot increased his v^ote but eleven, when it 
was evident the Albany programme could not suc- 
ceed, and the whole personal intrigue was demolished. 
The lobby measures and tactics, and all the dramatic 
parade and performance in the streets and hotels of 
Chicago, failed. Disappointed and overwhelmed. 
Weed refused to return to New York, but left for the 
Northwest, and some days later made his appearance 
far south at Springfield, where he had an interview 
with Mr. Lincoln in ^' his secluded abode." It was 
with. Jidiis Achates still a personal matter, and if Mr. 
Seward could not be President he wished him in a po- 
sition where he could be potential in the coming admin- 
istration, believing with Mr. Adams that Mr. Lincoln 
had " little previous preparation for his task," and 
that Mr. Seward was his superior in " native intellec- 
tual power." A very serious mistake on the part of 
both. Members of Congress had also expected, and 
took it for granted, that a man in official position and 
of political experience, with hereditary party claims. 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 29 

and a personal following as well as pecuniary backers, 
such as could be found only in the commercial metro- 
polis, would be selected. Others, however, wished a 
liberal candidate, wedded to no past organization, and 
untainted by and wholly disconnected with legislative 
or congressional corruption and intrigue. 

Mr. Lincoln became the choice of the convention, 
not only from a belief that he had ability for the place, 
but because he was a Republican from the start, a pri- 
vate citizen, honest sagacious, and firm, with no vicious 
connections or debasing political associations or ante- 
cedents. It was not " the ghosts of the higher law and 
of the irrepressible conflict " which made Mr. Lincoln 
a candidate, for he and Mr. Seward stood alike in that 
respect ; nor was it " the element of bargain and man- 
agement manipulated by adepts at intrigue" which 
secured his nomination, for the ^' adepts at intrigue'' 
were active for another. 

The convention and the people preferred Abraham 
Lincoln, in what Mr. Adams calls '• his secluded abode 
in the heart of Illinois " to Senator Seward, with all 
his experience and metropolitan surroundings, because 
he was more truly the representative of the Republi- 
can movement. Nor did the country regret, or ever 
have cause to regret, that preference, whatever may 
have been the disgust of disappointed officials and 
expectants in AVashington or elsewhere. Time, and 
trials far greater than have ever been the lot of any 
other chief magistrate, tested and proved the wisdom 
of their choice. Mr. Lincoln, honeyt, intelligent, delib- 
erate, patriotic, and determined, if not courtly bred, 
had the executive ability to guide the ship of state 



oU MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

through a pitiless storm. Mr. Seward, with his rest- 
less flexible mind, prolific in expedients, but with no 
well-defined policy, fixed political principles, or strong 
tenacity of purpose, could not have wielded the execu- 
tive power successfully, or navigated the ship of state 
in safety at that period, could he have been nominated 
and elected, of which last there are very grave doubts. 
There have been previous occasions, as in 1828 and 
again in 1840, when all the calculations of politicians, 
statesmen of experience, and men in place, have been 
wrecked by an upheaval of popular sentiment, and 
candidates taken from the ranks — " secluded abodes " — 
were carried forward on the mighty wave of public, if 
sometimes mistaken, opinion to a triumphant election. 
Mr. Adams fails to mention, and probably never 
realized, the primary dififerences in the Republican 
party which caused results so unexpected to him and 
the politicians in Congress. It was confidently expected 
that the six Eastern states which had been the strong- 
hold of the whig party and where the central organiza- 
tion was powerful, would concentrate on Mr. Seward, 
but though many of the party leaders were committed 
to his support he was never a favorite with the people. 
No manipulation or appliances could secure him their 
support. On the first ballot at Chicago, Connecticut, 
Rhode Island and Vermont were unanimous against 
him — New Hampshire gave him only one of her twelve 
votes. Maine and Massachusetts were divided. The 
deleo^ates were committed to no one of the several can- 
didates but were decided against Mr. Seward. Before 
the convention met, it was supposed that an arrange- 
ment could be made with Cameron, by which Pennsyl- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 81 

vania could be ])roiiglit in to sustain Mr. Seward, but 
although that politician's influence was great it was 
totally insufficient to attach Pennsylvania to the Al- 
bany movement. 

So unaware was Mr. Seward of the true condition 
of things when the convention assembled at Chicago 
— so convinced that the Albany programme would 
succeed — that he left his seat in the Senate and re- 
paired to Auburn in the confident expectation of there 
receiving a conmiittee which would inform him of his 
nomination. The adverse blow was severe; but more 
readily than man}- of his friends, did he submit to the 
great disappointment, and with his usual tact accepted 
and acquiesced in results which he could not control. 

The '' Memorial Address" represents it to have 
been an error that Mr. Seward was not '• early secured 
in a prominent post" by the President elect, and says 
that '' his advice at least should have been asked in 
regard to the completion of the organization." The 
reverse of this was a matter of duty, for the views and 
wishes of Mr. Seward and his special friends were not 
the policy and intention of Mr. Lin(.'oln and the Re- 
publicans. Mr. Lincoln knew that the services of Mr. 
Seward were at his disposal in case the Republicans 
were successful, even before he was elected, and it 
was impressed upon him most earnestly as a necessity 
immediately thereafter. Twice at least did Thurlow 
Weed, the faithful managing friend of Mr. Seward, 
t\\Qfidus Achates " to whom he owed many obliga- 
tions of that kind," visit Springfield in Mr. Seward's 
behalf. The views of Mr. Lincoln in regard to the 
composition of his executive council, and the material 



32 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

of which it should be constructed, were so widely 
different from those of Mr. Seward and his Albany 
associates, that no inclination was felt to ask his or 
their advice on the subject. He had the selection of 
Mr. Seward in his mind as early as that of any of his 
associates, but he had no more thought of consulting 
him as regarded the other members of his Cabinet 
than of advising with them or either of them as to his 
Secretary of State. The members were to be his 
advisers, not Mr. Seward's ; to aid and assist him in 
the administration of the government, instead of any 
one of his subordinates, all of whom were expected to 
cooperate for the general welfare. 

Mr. Lincoln was modest, kind, and unobstrusive, 
but he had nevertheless sturdy intellectual indepen- 
dence, wonderful self-reliance, and, in his unpretending 
way, great individuality. Though ever willing to Ms- 
ten to others and to avail himself of suggestions from 
any quarter which he deemed valuable, he never for a 
moment was unmindful of his position or of proper 
self-respect, or felt that he was " dependent" on any 
one for the faithful and competent discharge of any 
duty upon which he entered. He could have dispensed 
with any one of his cabinet and the administration 
not been impaired, but it would have been diflScult if 
not impossible to have selected any one who could 
have filled the office of chief magistrate as successfully 
as Mr. Lincoln in that troublesome period. In admin- 
istering the government, there were details in each 
department with which he did not interfere or attempt 
to make himself familiar — a routine which the Secre- 
taries respectively discharged. Of these the President 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 33 

had a general knowledge, and the executive control 
of each and all. In this respect the Secretary of 
State bore the same relation to the President as his 
C(^lleagues in the other departments. Mr. Lincoln 
well imderstood the nature of the differences which 
existed in the Republican party— the causes which had 
influenced the members of the Chicago Convention, 
and the policy which it was expected would character- 
ize his administration. His sympathies, feelings, and 
views were in harmony and full accord with those who 
had secured his nomination ; and, ftiithful in his con- 
victions and to his trust, he would not permit those 
who selected him to be disappointed, nor allow him- 
self to be diverted from that policy nor to organize a 
Cabinet opposed to it. 

But the same influences which operated and were 
defeated at Chicago in nominating a candidate, early 
obtruded themselves on the President elect in attempts 
to control his selection of his executive council. Mr. 
Seward and his special friends, who still clung to the 
old Whig party, and hoped by some device to renew 
and prolong it, were apprehensive that there would 
be too strong an infusion of the Democratic element 
in the Cabinet. They did not propose to wholly ex- 
clude men of Democratic antecedents, but it was urged 
that the Whig element should, for the sake of har- 
mony, and efficient, concerted, united action, have a 
decided preponderance. Mr. Lincoln quietly listened 
to these representations, but he well understood the 
obiect,and avoided the path to which they mvited 
him. Instead of yielding to them, he was conhrmed 
in his convictions that the Republican policy which 



2' 



34 MR. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWARD. 

led to his nomination and election was right, and 
should be maintained independent of old parties and 
old organizations. Discarding the importunities of 
the Albany mission which visited him in Springfield, 
he brought into his Cabinet an equal number from 
each of the old opposing parties, which would enable 
him to get the opinions of men of diifering political 
views. It was with two exceptions the same as that 
with which four months later he commenced his ad- 
ministration. His first cast of the persons to compose 
the administration was as follows : 

Lincoln Judd 

Seward Chase 

Bates Blair 

Dayton Welles 

The four names in the first column, including that 
of Mr. Lincoln himself, were of men who in their 
political antecedents had been Whigs, while the four 
in the opposite parallel column were Democrats in 
their principles and convictions though Mr. Chase had 
never identified himself with the democratic organiza- 
tion. He was distinctly anti-slavery, but concurred 
with the democrats in supporting the rights of the 
states and was an advocate of a strict construction of 
the constitution. 

IS^orman B. Judd of Chicago, was an active and 
infiuential politician of Illinois, and for many years a 
leading member of the legislature of that state. He 
was also a member of the Republican National 
Committee, and probably did more than any other one 
individual to bring forward and secure the nomination 
of Mr. Lincoln, for whom he had a high regard and 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 35 

friendship, which was fully reciprocated. The Presi- 
dent informed me that he had personally a stronger 
desire that Judd should be associated with him in the 
administration than any one else but he was from 
Illinois, and there were political and other circum- 
stances which intervened. Instead of a Cabinet 
appointment therefore, Judd received the Prussian 
Mission, which he filled during Mr. Lincoln's adminis- 
tration, but he was recalled soon after Mr. Lincoln's 
death, on representations made by ^h\ Seward. 

William L. Dayton of New Jersey, who was 
designated for a position in the original cast of the 
Cabinet was appointed Minister to France. lie had 
been the successful competitor with Mr. Lincoln for 
the nomination of Yice President in 1858, and was 
held in especial esteem b}^ him. There was, however, 
as usual a strong local claim for Pennsylvania, without 
any distinguished statesman in whom the President 
had such faith and confidence as he had in Mr. Dayton, 
but the pressure from without as well as from within 
the State, with certain complications of his friends led 
to the substitution of Mr. Cameron. It was the first 
intention of the President, as I have understood, after 
this substitution, to have conferred on Mr. Dayton the. 
mission to St. James, but Mr. Seward who was to have 
charge of Foreign Afiiiirs preferred and urged that Mr. 
Adams should have the English appointment, and Mr. 
Dayton, therefore, received the mission to France. 

These changes in the original programme or cast 
of the Cciblnet did not afiect the purpose of the Presi- 
dent to have in his council an equal number of men of 
opposite parties in the past. Caleb Smith a Whig, 



36 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

and Simon Cameron a democrat took the places of Jndd 
a democrat and Dayton a whig. 

But although this was his first programme he was 
wisely reticent, and kept his own counsel. When, 
however, his intentions finally became known, and the 
names of the gentlem.en whom he proposed to call to 
his side were ascertained, there was an emphatic dissent 
on the part of the special managing friends of Mr. 
Seward. Two of the gentlemen were especially ex- 
cepted to, as extreme Democrats, antagonistic to Mr. 
Seward, who had been instrumental against him, 
especially at Chicago, and to whom he could scarcely 
be reconciled in administrative duties. But objec- 
tionable as these men were, the opposition to Mr. 
Chase was still more decisive ; and it was intimated 
that if these gentlemen, particularly the last referred 
to, were to receive Cabinet appointments, Mr. Seward 
might decline the association. This intimation had 
no effect on Mr. Lincoln, nor did it in the least change 
his determination. While willing to accept and desir- 
ous to have the services of Mr. Seward and the sup- 
port of his friends, he did not feel that " it was abso- 
lutely indispensable on every account " to secure him 
above others, or to the exclusion of others, or to be 
governed by him and his likes or dislikes in the choice 
of confidants or the make-up of his political family. 
In point of fact, there was strong opposition among 
his friends to Mr. Seward's appointment. He had no 
apprehensions whatever that he should not be able to 
have Mr. Seward in his council ; and if the gentlemen 
whom he selected had not in their party antecedents, 
or in certain fundamental political opinions agreed, but 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 37 

were now Repnblicfais in accord with him on present 
questions, that was sufficient for his purpose. Old 
things in parties were with him done away. There 
w^as a new depM'ture in political organizations. His 
administration and his Cabinet were to be Republican 
irrespective of past parties. But schemes to secure a 
Seward Cabinet commenced early, and were persist- 
ently follow^ed up to the inauguration. Weed, as 
already remarked, did not return to Albany after the 
Chicago nomination until he visited, and had an inter- 
view with Mr. Lincoln in his "secluded abode,'' at 
Springfield, the capital of Illinois. This was the begin- 
ning, and nothing was accomplished. Late in the Sum- 
mer, AVeed met certain gentlemen in Saratoga, when 
something definite respecting the Cabinet in the event 
of Mr. Lincoln's election was attempted. After the elec- 
tion Mr. Lincoln was urged to visit Auburn and consult 
Mr. Seward, who " had a plurality of votes on the first 
ballot" at Chicago, but he declined the invitation. It was 
winter, the address says, "at quite a late period of the 
session, before he had disclosed his intention to place Mr. 
Seward in the most prominent place in the Cabinet." 

Most of the facts in relation to the formation of 
the Cabinet I received from the mouth of Mr. Lin- 
coln, who had apparently no concealments on tlie sub- 
ject. On the day of the presidential election, Novem- 
ber 3d, 1860, he said, the telegraph operator at Spring- 
field invited him to occupy his room and obtain intel- 
ligence of the result as it was received. About two 
o'clock on Wednesday morning sufficient information 
had come in to leave no dou1)t of his election. He 
then retired, but hardly to sleep. Although fatigued 



38 ME. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

and exhausted, he got but httle rest. Oppressed with 
the overwhehning responsibility that was upon him, 
which in the excitement of the campaign he had not 
fully realized, he felt the necessity of relief and assist- 
ance to sustain him in the not distant future. He did, 
he said, what probably all his predecessors had done — - 
looked about him at once for the men on whom he could 
depend, and who would be his support in the trials 
that were before him. The reliable and marked men 
of the country were in his mind, but there were many 
other things to be taken into consideration — different 
influences, sectional and political, to be reconciled. 
He did not again sleep until he had constructed the 
framework of his Cabinet. It was essentially the same 
as that with which four months later he commenced 
his administration. This voluntary and unsolicited 
statement was from the man whose mind, Mr. Adams 
says, months after his election, " had not even opened 
to the nature of the crisis." Circumstances and ex- 
tended details which Mr. Lincoln gave, relating to in- 
dividuals and movements, Cabinet and other appoint- 
ments need not be here introduced. This generaliza- 
tion is evidence that even at that period he had a pol- 
icy and purpose, which he carried into effect, wholly 
distinct from and independent of the plans which Mr. 
Seward and his friends had marked out. He prefer- 
red to select his own advisers, and did so instead of 
permitting Mr. Seward to do it for him. He had in 
view a Republican, not a Whig administration, and 
therefore required and formed a Eepublican Cabinet. 
There was but one member of it appointed on the spe- 
cial, urgent recommendation and advice of Mr. Seward 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 39 

and his friends, who preferred him to Mr. Chase for 
the Treasury, but that gentleman was soon with Mr. 
Seward's approval, transferred to hyperborean regions, 
in a way and for reasons never publicly and distinctly 
made known. 

The unhappy condition of the country during the 
winter of 1861 is. not overstated in the "Memorial 
Address." It was as well understood and as deeply 
deplored at Springfield and in remote sections as at 
Washington, where Congress frittered away its time, 
and pursued a course as unpatriotic as, and scarcely less 
reprehensible than, the Administration which proclaim- 
ed its iuability to coerce a state. The President elect 
witnessed the factious and disunion proceedings with 
imutterable distress, but he was powerless; and it was 
among the most painful afflictions of his varied and 
eventful life, to know and feel that he could do 
nothing to arrest threatened and impending calamities. 
Through the w^eary winter months that intervened be- 
tween the election in November and the inauguration 
in March, he beheld the executive authority paralyzed 
or wielded in the interest of those who threatened the 
integrity of the Union. Mr. Adams says : 

" Treason had crept into the very heart of the Cabinet, 
and a policy h'^ ' ^en secretly at work to paralyze 
rather tha'" ' " the resources of the Executive. 

EverV i^ig at the mercy of the wind and 

vas sent to Congress by Mr. 

fact of what he chose to call a 

.cCS, but coupling with it a deui- 

^ coerce them. This was in its essence 

-.ent of all right to control popular resist- 



40 MR. LINCOLN AND MK. SEWARD. 

ance in that form. In the condition things were at that 
moment, with a Cabinet divided and both branches of 
the legislatnre utterly without spirit to concert meas- 
ures, the effect was equivalent to disintegi'ation." 

What executive or legislative energy or ability 
was manifested by Congress at that crisis ? Mr. Lin- 
coln was a private citizen, " at home in Illinois," while 
this "secession of several states" w^as going on, hold- 
ing no office, exercising no authority, "giving no 
signs of life," Mr. Adams says; but well aware that 
every movement and every expression of his were 
watched and weighed not only by secessionists, but 
by men in place who did nothing to relieve but much 
to oppose and embarrass him in the duties upon which 
he was soon to enter. Mr. Seward was at that time 
in the Senate, in a position where a disinterested and 
patriotic statesman of experience, sagacity, and fore- 
sight, possessed of an energetic, capable, and master 
mind, and of executive power, would be expected to 
detect and expose error and make a decisive stand 
against avowed and approaching treason — treason 
which had in fact already, says the address, crept 
"into the very heart of the Cabinet." But there 
was not a measure of resistance, scarcely a note of 
alarm or even of apprehension, from the l^ew York 
Senator, who " received a plurality of votes" for Presi- 
dent on the iirst ballot in the Chicago Convention, 
and who was at the time not only a Senator but the 
accredited Secretary of State of the incoming Adminis- 
tration. To him, an actor in an exalted official posi- 
tion, a Senator of reputed sagacity and known expe- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 41 

rience, who was in daily personal and official inter- 
course with men of all parties, at the seat of govern- 
/ ment, the President elect from his ''secluded abode," 
and the whole country indeed, naturally looked with 
some degree of expectation, if not of great confidence, 
for decisive action, or at least correct information as to 
the state of affairs and probable results. Mr. Seward 
had a theory, but not such as to either inspire hope or 
create alarm. It was of a pacific tendency, and calcu- 
lated to calm apprehensions in that " perilous emer- 
gency." He anticipated, and said, there would be 
harmony and reconciliation within ninety days. If 
sincere in his prophetic assertions, he did not exhibit 
intelligence or statesmanship superior to Mr. Lincoln ; 
if insincere, he was even less reliable and faithful. 
Mr. Lincoln had the inclination and certainly the 
wish to believe that his selected counsellor, who was 
in the Senate, with opportunities at the time superior 
to himself or any other man to know the focts, was 
correct in his predictions and conclusions. Unfor- 
tunately Mr. Seward was mistaken. Mr. Adams 
says : " Wiseacres have commented on his failure of 
sagacity in making over-confident predictions. But 
what was he to do in the face of all the nations of the 
earth?" Fie certainly was not to falsify the truth ; 
he was not to sacrifice his integrity, nor did the " wise- 
acres" accuse him of any such sacrifice when they 
" commented on his failure of sagacity." It is to be 
presumed that he believed what he asserted, even if it 
makes him a less '' sagacious statesman" than is repre- 
sented in the " Memorial Address." His sagacity is 
not to be fortified at the expense of his veracity. 



42 MR. LIXCOLX AMD MR. SEWAKD. 

The truth is, Mr. Seward did not, even at that late 
day, realize to its full extent the nature of the impend- 
ing conflict, but viewed it as a severe and embittered 
party controversy, not unlike others the country had 
experienced, and which, being really causeless, he 
hoped and believed time and the change of administra- 
tion would pacify. Many of his associates as well as 
himself were of the party of expedients, and persuaded 
him and themselves that if once in power he could so 
manage as to allay dissension, prevent secession, and 
effect a restoration of Union feeling. Hence, without 
any avowed reason, nothiug but past " experience," 
he predicted the speedy peaceful solution of a dispute 
or controversy that to others looked formidable, and 
which soon not only threatened but assailed the Union. 
His predictions were in harmony with the policy, so 
far as he had a policy, of himself and friends. He 
was for peace, and had faith, hope, and confidence 
that peace would be preserved by some expedient, 
device, or luck — he knew not how — and he therefore 
predicted it. 

Mr. Lincoln was comforted by the assurances and 
predictions of his future minister then in the Senate, 
buflie had apprehensions w^hich no prophetic declara- 
tions could entirely put at rest. Results have shown 
that ''in this perilous interval,'' he, "in his secluded 
abode in the heart of Illinois,'' with unpretending yet 
undoubted sagacity, had a more correct knowledge 
and better appreciation of the condition of affairs — 
foresaw with more accurate perception the threatened 
difficulties — than the experienced politicians who pre- 
dicted and promised peace. Those who best knew 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 43 

the two men are aware tliat their minds were widely 
different inherently and in their organization. The 
President was greatly superior in intellectual strength 
and vigor, had the more solid and suhstantial qualities, 
more earnestness and sincerity, a greater grasp and 
comprehension, a more intuitive and far-seeing sagaci- 
ty, came almost instinctiv^ely to right conclusions, had 
more correct convictions, greater self-reliance, greater 
firmness of purpose, a stricter adherence to principles 
which he believed to be correct ; points that were best 
understood by those who knew him best. 

The Secretary of State had, with higlier culture 
and scholastic attainments, quickness of apprehension, 
wonderful facility and aptness in adapting himself to 
circumstances and exigencies which he could not con- 
trol, and a fertility in expedients, with a dexterity in 
adopting or dismissing plans and projected schemes, 
unsurpassed ; qualities which made him an acceptable 
companion, if not always a safe adviser, but never the 
superior and controlling executive mind. His train- 
ing and habit were partisan, and his acts often impul- 
sive ; but, accustomed through his whole official life to 
consult a faithful friend, to whose judgment and guid- 
ance he deferred, he had not in great emergencies the 
self-reliance, energy, will, and forceof character which 
are essential to a truly great and strong executive. 
He sometimes acted rashly, not always wisely. But 
if he had not the will which is necessary for a chief, 
he had the sustaining qualities which are valuable in 
serving a capable leader with whom he might be iden- 
tified. He was subordinate to Abraham Lincoln, and 
deferred to him as he had deferred to Thurlow Weed 



44: MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

— conformed to the views of the former as he had for 
thirty years to those of the latter — and assumed credit 
in the one case as it had always been given him in the 
other, without being the originating and directing 
mind in either. After the subsidence of the anti-ma- 
sonic excitement on which he was first carried into 
office, he became a Whig, and through all its changes 
and mutations, until the organization was extinguish- 
ed, he " adhered to the party." 

Mr. Lincoln, on the contrary, was divested of 
partisanship beyond almost any man in active public 
life ; not that he was insensible to party and its claims, 
but they were secondary and subordinate to principles 
— the means rather than the end. He " drifted," as 
he used to say, into the Whig organization at the be- 
ginning; his associations were chiefly there, but he 
had no particular veneration for the party or regard 
for many of its professed doctrines. Time, experience, 
reflection, and observation weakened whatever feeling 
or sympathy he once entertained for mere party. Un- 
like Mr. Seward, he had no reluctance in giving up the 
Whig organization ; no lingering affection for it, nor 
any hesitation to participate in and urge on the Re- 
publican movement from its inception. Mr. Seward 
was an adroit and skilful party tactician, familiar with 
the tricks and contrivances in which hi^jidus Achates 
indulged to carry an election ; while Mr. Lincoln had 
no taste, inclination, or respect for such practices, and 
would not, to secure party success, intentionally, even 
in the most excited election, deceive or permit others 
to deceive those who trusted him. The minds of the 
two men ran in different channels, and when they 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 45 

came too^ether on important questions, that of the 
President was the principal, and not, as represented in 
the address, the tributary. 
Mr. Adams says : 

*' Mr. Lincoln could not fail soon to perceive the fact 
that whatever estimate he might put on his own natural 
judgment, he had to deal witli a superior in native 
intellectual power, in extent of acquirement, in breadth 
of philosophic experience, and in the force of moral 
discipline. On the other hand, Mr. Seward could not 
have been long blind to the deficiencies of the chief in 
these respects, however highly he might value his 
integrity of purpose, his shrewd capacity, and his 
generous and amiable disposition. . . . Thus it happened 
th.it Mr. Seward voluntarily dismissed forever the 
noblest dreams of an ambition he had the clearest right 
to indulge, in exchange for a more solid power to direct 
affairs for the benefit of the nation, through the name 
of another, who should yet appear in all later time to 
reap the honors due chiefly to his labors." 

On no consideration would I detract one iota from 
the just merits of the late Secretar}^ of State, with 
whom, though sometimes differing, I for eight years, 
under two Executives, enjoyed uninterruptedly pleas- 
ant, social and official intercourse ; nor am I willing to 
see the memory of the distinguished Chief Magistrate 
who served his country so faithfully and bo well, and 
finally died in her cause, unjustly obscured, and his 
abilities and deeds belittled and wronged. As is else- 
where said in the address, " It is the duty of history, 
in dealing with all human action to do strict justice in 



46 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

discriminating between persons, and by no means to 
award to one, honors that clearly belong to another.'' 
Yet a more flagrant violation of " the duty of history'' 
in that respect, a more erroneous and unjust discrimi- 
nation, or a more unrighteous ''award to one honors 
that clearly belong to another," is scarcely to be found 
in all history than in the assumption that Mr. Seward 
directed the affairs of the nation through the name of 
Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Adams omits to state in what 
particular Mr. Seward, aside from his own department, 
" exercised the more solid power to direct affairs for 
the benefit of the nation'' of which Mr. Lincoln was 
*'in all later time to receive the honors.'' It was not 
in the management of the finances and establishing 
and maintaining the credit of the Government through 
a wasting war. I am not aware that he ever made a 
suggestion, proposed a measure, or in any way 
attempted to interfere with, or direct the affairs of the 
Treasury Department. There was a personal intimacy 
between him and the Secretary of War, but I do not 
remember that he proposed or directed the conduct of 
a single campaign, or originated any military or army 
movement, save some unfortunate and irregular pro- 
ceedings early in the administration, when he took 
upon himself, as Secretary of State, to perform secretly 
and improperly the duties of Secretary of War without 
the knowledge of that officer. On one or two occa- 
sions when he attempted, in total disregard of good 
government and correct administration, to intermeddle 
with naval matters, the proceedings were, as with the 
War Department, disapproved as irregular, improper, 
and reprehensible. In the administration and opera- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 47 

tions of the Navy Department he had no part; not a 
single naval expedition was undertaken on his recom- 
mendation, and the most injportant ones were in 
progress without his knowledge and far advanced 
befoi'e he was informed of them. In the affiiirs and 
management of the other three departments he partici- 
pated no more than in those mentioned, or than did 
other members of the Cabinet. The conduct of 
foreign affairs was of course, intrusted to him under 
the supervision and control of the President, who 
directed the governmental policy, and sometimes over- 
ruled, modified, and improved the dispatches which 
the Secretary had with great industry prepared. Mr. 
Seward held a ready and prolific pen, and had a mind 
fertile in expedients, but his judgment and conclusions 
were not always so sound and reliable as to pass with- 
out revision and Executive emendations and approval. 
Measures and important movements of each of the 
departments were generally, but not always, submitted 
to the Cabinet. The President was invariably con- 
sulted, but the Secretary" of State stood in this respect 
like his colleagues, and his opinion and judgment, like 
theirs, was taken as were the others for what, in the 
estimation of Mr. Lincoln, they were worth. The 
policy of the President and the course of administra- 
tion were based on substantial principles and convic- 
tions to which he firmly adhered. Mr. Seward relied 
less on fixed principle than expedients, and trusted to 
dexterity and skill rather than the rightfulness of a 
cause to carry him through emergencies. 



48 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

The construction of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet was, with 
perhaps one exception, his own work. He would have 
been glad to call into his council a statesman from the 
South of marked ability and influence, but there were 
difficulties which prevented. The gentlemen whom 
he finally selected had no previous intimacy, personal 
or political, nor were there antagonisms to prevent 
harmony and concerted action. Between Seward and 
Chase there was imputed rivalry, and until within two 
days of the inauguration the opposition of the friends 
of the former to placing Mr. Chase in the Treasury 
was active and persistent. Each of these gentlemen 
had high aspirations. Each had been the chief Execu- 
tive of his State. Each had represented his State in 
the Senate, and each had a distinct party position, 
and, to some extent, a personal following, which made 
the competition interesting. Mr. Seward was a Ke- 
publican with centralizing tendencies, and had been 
prominent in the once powerful Whig organization 
which had fallen into decay. Mr. Chase was a federal 
Kepublican, favorable to State rights, not attached to. 
nor strictly identified with, either of the old party or- 
ganizations, but had been for years a conspicuous leader 
in the anti-slavery movement which was rising on the 
ruins of the Whig party. Their colleagues, aware of 
these differences and rivalries, were indifferent to 
them, and arrayed themselves under the banners of 
neither. It would be invidious to attempt to institute 
a comparison between these two gentlemen thus sit- 
uated and associated ; but the " Memorial Address " 
of Mr. Adams places Mr. Seward in the front rank of 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 40 

the anti-slaver V movement — a " veteran reformer " — 
when, in fact, he had been one of the prominent mem- 
bers of a very different party, which, like the Demo- 
cratic organization, carefully abstained from connec- 
tion with that movement, while Mr. Chase was for 
years a prominent anti-slavery champion — openly, 
boldly, and irrespective of all other parties or organi- 
zations, its active and efficient advocate. In the ap- 
pointment of these two men, Mr. Lincoln, who adopted 
the policy of Washington in bringing men of oppo- 
sing principles into his Cabinet, provided they harmo- 
nized in measures of administration, reversed the 
original arrangement by giving to Seward, a Republi- 
can centralist, the post of Jefferson, a State rights 
federal Republican, and to Chase, a federal Republi- 
can, the post which Washington assigned to Hamilton, 
a centralist. 

Mr. Seward entered upon his duties with the im- 
pression, undoubtedly, which Mr. Adams seems to 
have imbibed, that he was to be de facto President, 
and, as the premier in the British Government, to 
" direct the affairs of the nation in the name of 
another.'' The consequences were that confusion and 
derangement prevailed to some extent at the commence- 
ment by reason of the mental activity, assumptions, 
and meddlesome intrusions of the Secretary of State in 
the duties and affairs of others, which were, if not dis- 
organizing, certainly not good administration. Conff- 
dence and mutual frankness on public affairs and mat- 
ters pertaining to the Government, particularly on 
what related to present and threatened disturbances, 
existed auiong all the members, with tlie exception of 
3 



50 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

Mr. Seward, who had, or affected, a certain mysterious 
knowledge which lie was not prepared to impart. 
This was accepted as a probable necessity by his 
associates, for he had been in a position to ascertain 
facts which it was intimated he could not perhaps well 
disclose. It early became apparent, however, that the 
Secretary of State had ideas and notions of his own po- 
sition and that of his colleagues, as well as of the char- 
acter and attitude of the President, that others could 
not admit or recognize. Secretiveness, subtle expedi- 
ents, and mysterious management, which limited the 
knowledge of certain important transactions to the 
State Department, but of which the President was in 
some degree and from time to time partially informed, 
^V'ere the initiative Albany methods of executive gov- 
ernment. This reserve it appeared from subsequent 
disclosures consisted of an understanding between him- 
self and certain leading opponents with whom he had 
held private conference during the winter, the main 
purpose of which was to prevent any collision or deci- 
sive movement during the remnant of Mr. Buchanan's 
administration. The motives of Mr. Seward in promo- 
ting delay, were undoubtedly well-intentioned, founded 
on faith that he, if in power, could in some way, by 
some expedient reconcile differences. The secession- 
ists had other objects. They knew it would be more 
difficult to unite the southern people in a war against 
the Buchanan administration than against Lincoln, the 
"black republican'' whose election they had opposed 
and whom they declared and caused those who confided 
in them to believe to be an enemy to the South. The 
politicians, in Congress and out of it, who gathered in 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 51 

and about Washin^rton that winter were willinir to 
postpone action during the few remaining days of the 
expiring administration, and none more. so than the 
feeble and irresolute, but not unintelligent or unpatri- 
otic President w4io felt himself incapable of firmly 
holding the reins and successfully guiding the govern- 
ment in that crisis. Ill-advised, bewildered, paralyzed 
and betrayed, he readily caught at any plan which 
would give him quiet, and enable him to tide over the 
short remnant of his official life. The private confer- 
ence of the leaders during this winter led to temporary 
arrangements, armistices and humiliating terms with 
avowed disunionists, acquiescence in the seizure of 
forts, arsenals and other public property. The govern- 
ment was to do nothing to preserve the union while 
the rebels were active and permitted to organize and 
do everything to resist the national authority after the 
4th of March, should the secession demands not be com- 
plied with, and exaction not be met by concession. 

The failures to take prompt, energetic, and decisive 
measures against the secession movements at the com- 
mencement, and thus, like Andrew Jackson in 1832, 
to "resist the beginning of evil," displayed on the part 
of Mr. Buchanan great want of executive ability. 
The indecision of the president, and the efforts of 
others to put off for a few weeks the evil day, was, 
from whatever motive, unfortunate for the reputation 
of President Buchanan, but more unfortunate for the 
country. In every point of view the temporizing 
policy of the winter of 1861 may be considered a mis- 
take, a national misfortune. Kot that a war could 
have been prevented. The conflict which had been 



52 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

thirty years maturing was so deep seated, its pro- 
portions were so vast, the passions had become so 
excited tliat no eartlily power could have saved tlie 
country from war. The men who combined against 
the government for alleged grievances had, after long 
preparation, iinally succeeded in obtaining control of 
the civil organization of the states in one section of the 
union and were determined to have the ascendency in 
the general government, or a nesv confederacy of their 
own. But if hostilities could not have been pre- 
vented, it is scarcely to be doubted they would have 
been of less proportions had the administration of 
Mr. Buchanan put forth the strong hand of power 
against the lirst organization to disorganize, and pro- 
tected, defended and held tlie fortresses and public 
property intrusted to its keeping. But the friends of 
the incoming and outgoing administrations in Wash- 
ington concurred in acting on a different policy, 
though from diflEerent motives. The secessionists felt 
truly that to them delay was important, that it would 
be an embarrassing and unhappy, if not a disastrous 
complication for them to make open war on the govern- 
ment while it was administered by a man of their own 
selection and whose general course they approved. 
Mr. Seward who was in pretty free communication 
with, though politically opposed to them, persuaded 
himself that if the contestants did not take the field 
until there was a change of administration, he could 
then, with his fertility of resources, expedients and 
means, tranquillize the country. In this he was as sincere 
as in any political act of his life. Those who charge 
him with unpatriotic and ulterior designs against the 



MR. LINCOLN AND MK. SEWARD. 53 

government and the union, do liiui injustice ; lie was a 
centralist in his tendencies, nut a disunionist, and in 
his efforts to delay action he was on what Mr. Adams 
calls " tlie delusive track of expediency," without 
fixed principles, or any clear and well defined policy. 
His prophecies of pacification within ninety days, iter- 
ated and reiterated, were based on no facts. He never 
made known what he proposed to do to reconcile differ- 
ences except as declared in his speech of the twelfth 
of Januarj^, by meeting exaction with concession, sub- 
mitting to the doctrine of coercion and evacuating the 
national fortresses in the seceding states. With taith 
in expedients he expressed his readiness for a national 
convention to revise the constitution, and also for an 
amendment to prohibit forever, beyond revocation, any 
authority in Congress to interfere with the subject of 
slavery. As the war was inevitable and soon came 
''with all its horrid cost," it was fortunate for the 
country that so honest, so determined, so sagacious 
and capable a man as Lincoln was President to meet 
it, with his comprehensive ability,yliuman instincts, 
fixed principles, calm forbearance and regard for Fed- 
eral and state rii>hts. 

CD 

For several weeks after the inauguration, no stated 
Cabinet meetino^s were held, thouo^h the members 
were frequently assembled in council — sometimes only 
a part ; but whenever convened, it was by special no- y 
tice from the Secretary of State. This irregular prac- 
tice, initiated and pressed by the Secretary of State, 
who was supposed to be familiar with usage and to 
have great executive expei'ience, was after some weeks 
corrected, and stated meetings on Tuesdays and Fri- 



64: MR. LINCOLN AND MK. SEWARD. 

days were ordered, against tlie remonstrance of Secre- 
tary Seward, who thought stated meetings caused un- 
necessary interruptions of business, and that often 
only a part of the members, such as were specially in- 
terested in the subjects under consideration, need be 
called to meet him and the President. It is mention- 
ed in the " Memorial Address," that " Mr. Seward 
himself came into the State Department with no ac- 
quaintance with the forms of business other than that 
obtained incidentally through his services in the Sen- 
ate.'' This was soon obvious to the whole council, 
who were much annoyed for a time by this want of 
proper system and that correct administration which 
is essential to intelligent unity in the Government. 
Under evident misapprehension of his own powers 
and duties, and in disregard of what belonged to oth- 
ers, the Secretary of State undertook too much, found 
himself embarrassed by promises and assurances in- 
considerately given ; and with no clear and well-deiined 
policy, but with assumption of pretty unlimited au- 
thority and faith in expedients, on which, rather than 
substantial principles, he relied, there were for a brief 
period some singular proceedings. President Lincoln 
bore with these things patiently, though greatly em- 
barrassed, for the omens abroad were portentous. In- 
cidents and occurrences which actually took place will 
best illustrate the condition of affairs, the men, and 
their relative positions in administering the govern- 
ment. 

Within a month after the advent of Mr. Lincoln 
and the organization of his Cabinet, the Secretary of 
State exhibited his loose ideas of government, his want 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 65 

of system and defect of correct executive and admin- 
istrative talent by preparing and sending out an irreg- 
ular military expedition for the relief ot Fort Pickens, 
without consulting the Secretary of War and without • 
his knowledge or that of any of his associates. There 
is not in the archives and history of the Government 
a record of such mischievous maladministration, when 
all the circumstances are considered, as this secret 
scheme of the Secretarv of State to send, without con- 
suiting the War Department or the General-in-Chief, 
a military expedition to Pickens, which had already 
been relieved. Military and naval appropriations 
were not at his disposal, but he assumed their expen- 
diture. Officers and men of both the War and Navy 
Departments were surreptitiously, and without the 
knowledge of either the Secretary of War or Secretary 
of the Navv, withdrawn from leo-itimate duty ; the 
funds and means provided for their respective depart- 
ments by Congress, and legally under their control, 
for which they, and not the Secretary of State, were 
responsible, and which were destined by them and the 
government for different objects, were secretly ab- 
stracted and diverted to purposes of which neither of 
them, nor any member of the Cabinet, was informed. 
In consequence of this strange misgovernment there 
was confusion, disorganization, and demoralization ; 
the records of the War and Navy Departments were 
made unreliable and apparently false ; officers were 
away from their assigned duty ; funds were misap- 
plied ; important movements were paralyzed and de- 
feated ; the course of the Administration was inter- 
rupted and incomprehensible, and it is not surprising 



56 ME. LINCOLN InD MK. SEWAED. 

that it was accused of weakness and mismanagement. 
'No satisfactory solution was ever made or attempted 
for these erratic and intrusive proceedings, other than 
rumors or charges that the Secretary of State had 
given assurances in regard to Fort Sumter that were 
unauthorized, and which could in no other way be 
carried out. 

The condition of Fort Sumter and the necessity of 
measures for its relief were the first matters pressed 
upon the President, even before his Cabinet was organ- 
ized. In his Inaugural Address he had said, " The 
power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and 
possess the property and places belonging to the Gov- 
ernment." This was his policy ; but the Secretary of 
State, who had different views, opposed sending rein- 
forcements to Sumter, and in his opposition he was 
s-ustained by General Scott, to whom the subject was 
first properly referred as a military question. General 
Scott gave his "hearty cooperation," to Mr. Seward, 
and reported against sending supplies. Ail the Cab- 
inet, except Mr. Blair, acquiesced in the military rec- 
ommendation ; but the President, after repeated dis- 
cussions, rejected the advice of Mr. Seward and ad- 
hered to his own original policy. The decision was a 
great disappointment to the Secretary of State. It 
w^as subsequently alleged, and has never been denied, 
that he had promised the rebels that Sumter should be 
evacuated. Thurlow Weed admitted in the Albany 
Evening Journal that such a promise had been made, 
but though Mr; Weed appears to have been informed 
of the fact, the Cabinet was not. The President was 
not a party to any such assurance, knew not of it, and 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 57 

never gave it his sanction. Here, at the ver}^ com- 
mencement of the Administration, the two minds were 
in direct antagonism on a subject of momentous na- 
tional interest. The president, who is represented as 
*' having been selected partly on account of the absence 
of positive qualities," with a " mind not opened to the 
nature of the crisis," as subordinate and deficient in 
" native intellectual power," had a policy of his own 
in which he persisted, though opposed by the Secre- 
tary of State, aided by the General-in-Chief and the 
acquiescence of all but one of the Cabinet. His 
countrymen were with him and his views, not with 
the Secretary of State. 

One evening in the latter part of the month of 
March there was a small gathering at the Executive 
Mansion while the Sumter question was still pending. 
The members of the Cabinet were soon individually 
and quietly invited to the council-chamber, where, as 
soon as assembled, the President informed them he 
had just been advised by General Scott that it was ex- 
pedient to evacuate Fort Pickens as well as Fort Sum- 
ter, wliich last was assumed at military headquarters 
to be a determined fact in conformity with the views 
of Secretary Seward and the General-in-Chief. This 
astounding announcement was the more surprising 
from the feet that the Navy Department had, about a 
fortnight previously, on the 12th of March, on the spe- 
cial application of General Scott, sent the steamer 
Mohawk to the squadron off Pensacola with orders to 
land Captain Vogdes and his command, and thus rein- 
force Pickens. Ko word had been received from the 
fort, or from any quarter, that rendered ne essary or 
3* 



58 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

even expedient this unaccountable change of military 
operations. A brief silence followed the announce- 
ment of the amazing recommendation of General 
Scott, when Mr. Blair, who had been much annoyed 
by the vacillating course of the General-in-Chief in re- 
gard to Sumter, remarked, looking earnestly at Mr. 
Seward, that it was evident the old general was play- 
ing politician in regard to both Sumter and Pickens ; 
for it was not possible, if there was a defence, for the 
rebels to take Pickens ; and the Administration would 
not be justified if it listened to his advice and evacua- 
ted either. Yery soon thereafter, I think at the next. 
Cabinet meeting, the President announced his decision 
that supplies should be sent to Sumter, and issued con- 
fidential orders to that eflfect. All were gratified with 
this decision except Mr. Seward, who still remonstra- 
ted, but preparations were immediately commenced to 
fit out an expedition to forward supplies. To the 
surprise of the Administration, information of the con- 
fidential order to reinforce Sumter was promptly sent 
to Charleston. It was subsequently ascertained that 
this telegram was sent by Mr. Harvey, a newspaper 
correspondent, who was intimate at the State Depart- 
ment. Mr. Harvey himself was soon after appointed 
Minister to Portugal, on the recommendation and by 
request of Mr. Seward. 

It was on the twenty-eighth of March that the 
President informed the Cabinet of his determination 
to relieve the garrison in Fort Sumter. On the follow- 
ing day, the twenty-ninth of March, Mr. Seward in- 
stituted his secret military expedition, without consult- 
ing the Secretary of War or General Scott. Until 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 59 

this time there liad been '' hearty cooperation" be- 
tween them, but on the twenty-ninth Mr. Seward 
took Montgomery C. Meigs, then a captain of en- 
gineers, to the President, saying, " he thought the Presi- 
dent ought to see some of the younger officers, and not 
consult only with men who, if the war broke out, 
could not mount a horse," as Genei-al Scott could not. 
The General had from some cause or influence during 
the winter abandoned his original Jacksonian recom- 
mendation to President Buchanan that the forts in the 
South should be occupied and strengthened. He now 
advised President Lincoln to a different policy, and 
that Sumter and Pickens should be evacuated. Two 
dsLjs before the inauguration he had so far yielded to 
the secession movement as to propose in a private let- 
ter to Mr. Seward as a last alternative, to permit 
'' the wayward sisters to go in peace.'' 

This letter of the second of March was addressed to 
Mr. Seward who does not appear to have dissented 
from it. On the contrarj^ knowing the position of 
General Scott, consulting and advising with him 
through the winter, aware of, if he was not instru- 
mental in, inducing the General to change his original 
recommendation to President Buchanan that the forts^ 
at the South ought to be garrisoned and strengthened, 
Mr. Seward, when the question of reinforcing Fort 
Sumter was under consideration advised tliat the whole 
subject should be referred to General Scott and that 
his report should be conclusive. At the time he so 
advised, Mr. Seward was aware of the altered views or 
position of General Scott, but no other member of the 
Cabinet was informed of the fact. On the eleventh 



60 ME. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

of March, General Scott made special personal and 
urgent application for a naval vessel to convey an 
officer who would be a bearer of dispatches with instruc- 
tions to Captain Yogdes on the steamer Brooklyn off the 
harbor of Pensacola to disembark his men and reinforce 
Fort Pickens. After orders had gone forward to New 
York to receive and convey this officer, I, on the even- 
ing of the succeeding day, the twelfth, received a note 
from the general stating he w^ould not send an officer 
but a w^ritten order which would be sufficient. The 
earnest zeal of the preceding day had, from some cause 
for which I could not account, abated ; the change in 
that emergency for which he gave no reason struck 
me with surprise, nevertheless I sent directions for 
Commander Strong of the Mohawk to carry and 
deliver the dispatch, if Commander Craven of the 
Crusader had sailed. 

Not until the President, a fortnight later made 
known to the Cabinet the recommendation of General 
Scott to evacuate Pickens as well as Sumter, and I 
heard the remark from Mr. Blair that he was playing 
politician instead of general could I account for the 
change from the programme of the twelfth. 

The unanimous rejection of his proposition to 
Gvacute Pickens, and the decision to reinforce Sumter, 
weakened the influence of General Scott and chano:ed 
Mr. Seward's tactics. Captain Meigs was substituted 
as military adviser of the Secretary of State and man- 
ager of details in his secret military operations. This 
method of taking subordinates into the confidence of 
the Secretary of State, ignoring the whole Cabinet, and 
of administering the different departments of the gov- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 61 

ernment, was never before practised, and will at no 
time bear very close inspection. General Scott, who 
had primarily confided implicitly in Mr. Sewai'd was 
more surprised than any other, at the course things had 
taken. 

The President, in the leo:itimate discharo-e of his 
functions as the cliief executiv'e officer of the govern- 
ment, directed that supplies should be sent to Sumter, 
and his confidential executive orders to that efiect 
became an absorbing administration measure. Military 
preparations were made, and a squadron was promptly 
fitted out by the Navy Department within one week 
from the date of the executive order to cooperate with 
the military, and instructions, sanctioned and approved 
by the President, were given to Captain Mercer, of 
the steam frigate Powhatan, to command the squadron 
and proceed ofi* Charleston harbor. The other vessels 
were directed to report to him on the 11th of April 
ten miles due east from Charleston lighthouse. But 
the whole plan and arrangement were defeated. Not 
only were the rebels advised of the confidential move- 
ments of the Administration by Harvey, and Governor 
Pickens by particular request of Mr. Seward inforined 
of the intentions of the President to send supplies but 
not troops, if the supplies were peaceably received ; but 
at the moment of sailing the expedition was deprived 
of its commander and llagship. Captain Mercer was 
displaced from the command without the knowledge 
of the Secretary of the Kavy and the entire squadron, 
when it arrived at the place of rendezvous, was desti- 
tute of a naval commander, fiagship, and instructions. 
The Powhatan, with boats, sup])lics, and men destintxl 



62 MR. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWAKD. 

for Sumter, had been withdrawn from the service to 
which she was especially ordered, and sent, without 
naval orders or record, under a different and junior 
commander, on a secret and useless mission to Pensa- 
cola, by the Secretary of State. None of these orders 
emanated from, passed through, or were known to the 
Navy or War Departme*nts. The whole proceeding, in 
all its parts, was irregular, disorganizing, bad adminis- 
tration, and deficient in executive ability. The Presi- 
dent, who, without giving the subject much considera- 
tion, had assented to the scheme of the Secretary of 
State to reinforce Pickens, was not aware that the flag- 
ship of the squadron to Charleston had been detached, 
and its commander superseded, until the evening of the 
6th of April, on which day the Powhatan sailed under 
a different officer for a distant destination, carrying 
off supplies, munitions, and boats which the Navy De- 
partment had ordered for Sumter. I was not made 
acquainted with this secret proceeding until the Pow- 
hatan sailed, when I immediately informed the Pres- 
ident. So soon as aware of the fact, he directed Mr. 
Seward, although it was then midnight, to telegraph 
forthwith and countermand the orders which detached 
that vessel ; to reinstate Mercer, and in no way to inter- 
fere with the arran elements of the Secretary of the 
Navy. Mr. Seward remonstrated, claimed that tlie 
Powhatan was essential to reinforce Pickens, but the 
President was decided. A brief and curious telegram 
was sent by Mr. Seward in his own name to New 
York, and a fast boat despatched from the Navy Yard 
which overtook the Powhatan at Staten Island, but 
nothing was accomplished. The Sumter expedition 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 63 

sailed without a naval commander, the sqnadron had 
no head, and the Powhatan, one of the three naval 
vessels on the Atlantic coast on which the government 
relied in that "perilous emergency," with her large 
crew and armament, was sent to the Gulf, where she 
was not wanted, and where almost the whole home 
squadron was concentrated, while the whole maritime 
frontier north of Cape Florida was left destitute. It 
was on the night of the 6th of April that the Powhatan 
sailed for Pickens. On the next day Mr. Seward sent 
to Judge Campbell, a leading secessionist on the Su- 
preme bench : " Faith as to Sumter fully kept. Wait 
and see.'' 

In these proceedings the administration and execu- 
tive management of the President and Secretary of 
State, respectively, may be seen. The merits, sincerity, 
acts, and policy of each are disclosed, and from them a 
more correct estimate may be formed of their abilitj^ 
respective fitness, and peculiar qualities to discharge 
the duties of chief magistrate, than from the partial and 
prejudiced assertions of interested partisans. 

I have made mention of only certain general meas- 
ures of administration in regard to the relief of Sumter, 
but it may be said in passing that there is an unwritten 
history of the transaction — of vacillating changes on 
the part of General Scott ; of the singular notice of 
]\[ajor Anderson to Mr. Buchanan on the morning of 
the 4th of March, an hour or two before the inaugura- 
tion of Mr. Lincoln and of the stirring tidings to Mr. 
Lincoln on his taking the inaugural oath, of the prep- 
arations and non-preparations for defence, and other 



64 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

planning — which is yet to be analyzed and developed, 
but would be inappropriate in this place. 



The foUowins: letter from ex-Postmaster-General 
Blair, one of the surviving members of the first Cabi- 
net of Mr. Lincoln, corroborative of the foregoing 
statement, and illustrative of the character and course 
of the late Secretary of State in other respects will be 
read with interest : 

"Washington, May 17, 1873. 

" My Dear Mr. Welles : I duly received yours 
of the 14th. You will have seen ere this that I have 
anticipated your advice and made a statement in reply 
to Mr. Adams on the relations of Messrs. Lincoln and 
Seward. I know that a fuller statement would be read 
with interest, but I prefer to leave that to you. I am 
tempted, however, to contribute a short chapter to your 
exposition, and to illustrate Mr. Seward's character by 
giving an account of his intrigue to surrender the forts 
and allow secession to take its course, and his. sudden 
change of policy when he found that Mr. Lincoln would 
resist secession. 

General Scott was his great card at the outset. 
Lincoln, having been a Whig and a supporter of Scott 
for the Presidency, had persuaded himself in the canvass 
that the old general was a great military man ; and the 
general being really patriotic, and having learned from 
General Jackson how to deal with secession, would have 
given good advice, if, unfortunately, he had not fallen 
into Mr. Adams' error in regarding Mr. Seward as the 
head of the government, and for this reason surrendered 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. bO 

his own better juagiuent to that of Mr. Seward. This 
is shown by the fact that he had advised Mr. Buclianan 
to reinforce the forts. But in deference to Mr. Seward 
he changed all this, gave up his own opinions, and said, 
♦*Let the wayward sisters go in peace ; " and actually 
advised the surrender of Fort Pickens at Pensacola as 
well as Fort Sumter at Charleston ! 

I never shall forget the President's excitement when, 
after a Cabinet dinner at the White House, he called 
the Cabinet into a separate room, and informed us that 
General Scott had told him it would be neceamry to 
evacuate Fort Pickens as loell as Fort Sumter, It was 
while the question of the surrender of Fort Sumter was , 
undecided ; but at a time when it was believed the fort 
would be surrendered, and after the way had been pre- 
pared for it by statements in the Press that the fort was 
untenable. A very oppressive silence succeeded the 
President's statement of what General Scott had said. 
At length it w^as said this advice of the general's was 
enough of itself to show that he was playing politician 
and not general as respects Fort Sumter, as well as with 
respect to Fort Pickens, for there was no reason to 
believe that Fort Pickens could be taken from us." 

" Mr. Seward had overshot the mark this time. The 
Cabinet generally had been convinced that Fort Sumter 
was untenable, and acquiesced in its surrender, submit- 
ting to the inevitable. But there was no apprehension 
felt^'about Fort Pickens. The fort was well supplied, 
and was actually impregnable while we commanded the 
sea, and we then had a large naval force there. Hence, 
when the general said we must give up this fort too, 
the President's confidence in him was staggered, and 
from that moment I have always thought his power with 
the President waned. 



66 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

" When Mr. Seward saw that his policy of meeting 
"exaction with concession" and "violence with peace," 
announced in his speech of January 12, 1861, had failed, 
and that the President would not agree to surrender 
the forts, as Mr. Seward had induced General Scott to 
recommend him to do, he immediately telegraphed Gov- 
ernor Pickens, by the hands of Mr. Harvey, his Portu- 
guese minister, that an attempt was to be made to rein- 
force Sumter. General Anderson had made no prepa- 
rations to defend it, but left his barracks standing, to be 
fired at the first shot, instead of pulling them down and 
taking to his casemates, as he certainly would have 
done if he had not been authoritatively told that the fort 
was to he evacuated as soon as the small sujyply of proms- 
ions on hand had been consumed. But for this negli- 
gence for which he loas never chided^ the fort was im- 
pregnable, as events proved, for we could never take it 
from the Confederates. To make sure of defeating the 
relief, however, the Powhatan, on whose seamen and 
guns the success of this expedition wholly depended, 
was secretly detached, by an order surreptitiously ob- 
tained from the President, on the pretext of relieving 
Fort Pickens, which was in no danger, for the defence 
of which ample provision had already been made, and 
to whose relief the Powhatan was wholly unnecessary 
and in no way contributed. 

" Mr. Seward had two objects in detaching this ves- 
sel : 1st, It defeated the relief of Fort Sumter, which 
he was pledged to surrender, and the failure to relieve 
it would vindicate his judgment in advising against the 
attempt. 2d, Fort Pickens could be claimed as having 
been saved by an expedition conceived and carried into 
execution under his orders, and so, though he would by 
this movement abandon his method of meeting " exac- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 67 

tion with concession" and " violence with peace," he 
would signalize his abandonment of his peace policy by 
such a success in administering the force policy, as to 
put himself per saltinn at the head of his opponents, 
discomfited by the failure of their attempt at resistance. 
And accordingly, though the Powhatan did but sail to 
Pensacola and back again, it was heralded as a great 
achievement. 

" The result of this scheming was sad indeed. Our 
flag on Fort Sumter held Beauregard at Charleston. 
When it fell he marched into Virginia and precipi- 
tated secession there. If we could have held Fort Sum- 
ter there never would have been a drop of blood shed. 
It was the coercion of Virginia into the Confederacy by 
Beauregard's army that made the war. General Jack- 
son held nuUitication in check, and compelled the repeal 
of the South Carolina ordinance, simply by sending 
Scott, with one thousand men, to hold Fort Moukrie. 
Sumter was infinitelv stronger, and the North was rela- 
tively as much stronger than the South in 1860 as Sum- 
ter was stronger than Moultrie in 1833. Fortunately, 
the country was not cursed in Jackson's day with a 
meddling Secretary of State, to invite secession by 
agreeing to yield to its exactions and disarm the force 
ordered for its suppression, which was all-sufHcient for 
the purpose at the start — using, witliout stint, his pa- 
tronage and power to palm off through the Press the blun- 
dering intrigues which brought on a disastrous war, as 
statesmanship, and holding on to place by abandoning 
any policy which stood in the way of it, or by adopting 
any which might be required to retain it. I may misjudge 
Mr. Seward, but if I do it is not because I have ever had 
the least unkind feeling toward him personally. He 
never gave me the slightest reason for personal ill-will to 



68 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

him. My opposition to him has always been political, 
and because I regarded him as a most unsafe public 
man. He was a kindly man in his social relations, and 
when I met him in his home and family I enjoyed his 
society and was interested in him and them, and had a 
warm and sympathetic feeling for all that pertained to 
his domestic life. In that sphere I think he was a good 
and pure man. There Avas a freshness and heartiness in 
his manner, and his conversation so abounded in humor, 
and there was such an endless flow in his spirits, that I 
always found his society attractive. It was only against 
the political man that my nature revolted. He was to 
me the personification of old Polonius' politician, who 
" by indirection found direction out." Nor is this ver- 
sion of his character the result merely of my own obser- 
vation of his conduct, or derived from the reports of 
others who have been associated with him. I have seen 
much of him, and much of those who have associated 
long with him. But the familiar facts of his life, deriv- 
ed from these sources, accord exactly with the political 
philosophy I have heard him propound over and over 
again. No one has ever associated long with him who 
has not heard him recount by the hour his successful 
political strategy. I could fill a volume with his narra- 
tives of the tricks he has played, if I could recall the 
half part of what I have heard from him. He really 
thought that politics was but a game. I shall never 
forget how shocked I was at his telling me that he was 
the man who put Archy Dixon, the Whig Senator from 
Kentucky in 1854, up to moving the repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise, as an amendment to Douglas's first 
Kansas bill, and had himself forced the repeal by that 
movement, and had thus brought to life the Republican 
party. Dixon was to out-herod Herod at the South, 



ME. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWAKD. 



69 



and he would out-herod Herod at the Korth. He did 
not contemplate what followed. He did not bebeve m 
the reulity of the passions he excited, because he felt 
none himself. He thought it all a harmless game for 

" ' "Yours truly, 

" llIoNTGOMEKY BlATE." 



The cro-.vde.l incidents of the early days of Mr. 
Lincoln's Presidency, while the members of the Cabi- 
net were new to each other, and their relative stand- 
in- and authority apparently unsettled, the character 
of the Administration not yet defined, and the gov- 
ernment and country much demoralized, are deeply 
interesting, and some of them of a singular dcscriptu.m 
In his confiding nature the President doubtless trusted 
much to the Secretary of State. 

On the evening of the 1st of April, Mr. Isicolay, 
the private secretary of the President, brought me a 
package containing papers, instructions, and executive 
orders of a most extraordinary character. One ot 
them directed me to detach Commodore Stringjiam, a 
patriotic officer whom I had called to special duty m 
the Navy Department, where he was e.i.ployed in 
confidential trusts, and send him to Pensacola. Com- 
modore Pendergrast, who had just arrived at Hamp- 
ton Eoads from the West Indies with the Cumberland, 
was ordered to repair forthwith to Vera Cruz on 
account of alleged complications. A\ hy these two 
officers in whom I confided were selected to bo sent 
away was a mystery. On the Cumberland and the 
Powhatan the Navy Department was relying to co- 



70 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

operate with the military, for the protection of the 
Navj Yard at Norfolk in case of difficulty. All these 
orders relating to the navy were issued bj the Secre- 
tary of State without consultation with the Secretary 
of the Navy or any Cabinet consultation whatever. 
But the most extraordinary and irregular if not illegal 
order in that remarkable package directed a reorgani- 
zation of the Navy Department, and the establish- 
ment of a new bureau, in which I was commanded to 
place in the most confidential relations, where he 
should have knowledge of all the important transac- 
tions of the navy and Navy Department, and the 
government, Samuel Barron, a finished courtier and 
shrewd secessionist. On looking over these documents 
it was evident to me that the President had been the 
victim of misplaced confidence and was sadly imposed 
upon, or that he was as unfit for the office of Chief 
Executive as is represented in the " Memorial Address." 
I lost not a moment in waiting npon him, and reading 
to him these extraordinary papers. He promptly and 
emphatically disavowed them ; said he had hurriedly 
and without examination signed a large number of 
papers which had been brought to him by Secretary 
Seward for a very different purpose, and which he 
had supposed were merely formal ; that he was not 
aware of their contents; had trusted entirely to Mr. 
Seward ; and whom could he trust if not the Secretary 
of State ? He requested me to return him the orders 
or treat them as nullities. The result was, no new 
bureau was organized without law ; Barron was not 
taken into the confidence of the Navy Department, 
but soon deserted and was the first naval officer cap- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 71 

tured in the rebel service ; Stringham never went to 
Pensacola nor Pendergrast again to Yera Cruz, nor 
was there any complication tliat required it. 



It is stated that President Lincoln was " quite de- 
ficient in his acquaintance with tlie character and 
qualities of public men, or their aptitude for the posi- 
tions to which he assigned them. Indeed, he never 
selected them solely by that standard.'' The authori- 
ty for this statement is not given. It relates, apparent- 
ly, chiefly to appointments abroad, and these appoint- 
ments for which the President is held responsible, 
were most of them made on the recommendation of 
Mr. Seward, to whose department they properly ap- 
pertained, and who was vigilant and tenacious in dis- 
pensing the patronage of the State Department, often 
without consulting others. 

On this point of selecting officials, or being con- 
sulted in regard to appointments which came within 
the purview of his department, no man was more sen- 
sitive than Mr. Seward, though himself not always re- 
gardful of what in this respect was due to others. 

In March 1861, while the Senate was in extra 
session, differences existed between the Secretary of 
State and the Senators from New York relative to the 
local appointments in that state. These differences 
resulted in a conference at the State Department, to 
which the President was specially invited, and con 
sented with some reluctance to be present. It was an 
evening consultation, and he thought proper to invite 
me to accom23auy him. The President, Secretary 



i'2 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

Seward, and Senators King and Harris were the only 
persons besides myself in attendance. Before taking 
up the list of names the President said he would re- 
lieve them of any difference in regard to the most im- 
portant office, that of Collector, by appointing on his 
own responsibility and from personal knowledge, Hi- 
ram Barney, who had his confidence and was a man 
of integrity. There was but a single civil appoint- 
ment, that of Navy Agent, connected with the I^avy 
Department to be made. No disagreement existed 
concerning that, which was soon disposed of, when 
Mr. Seward remarked it would be unnecessary to de- 
tain me longer, but the President and the Senators 
desired me to remain. It is not necessarv to s:o into 
the particulars of that conference, which seemed to 
cover most of the important appointments in the city 
and State of New York. After listenins: to the (iis- 
position of some collectorships and other offices in 
which there was an approximation to agreement, an 
intimation was thrown out by Mr. Seward that he 
wished the list which he had made out, and which was 
somewhat extended, might be completed and the nom- 
inations sent forthwith to the Senate. This embarrassed 
the two Senators who were unprepared for so hasty a 
movement. 1 inquired if the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury and Attorney General had been consulted, and 
concurred in the selection. Mr. Seward said they had 
not ; that it was unnecessary ; that these were New 
York appointments, and he and the Senators knew 
better ihan any others what was best for the party and 
the administration in that state. I remarked that 
Cabinet officers were responsible for the proper admin- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 73 

istration of their respective departments ; that sul)or- 
dinates should have their confidence, and if changes 
were to be made of the incumbents, the new selections 
should be by them or with their concurrence ; that to 
fill the offices under them with untried men whom 
they did not know, and without their knowledge, ap- 
peared to me improper and would be likely to cause 
difficulties. Mr. Seward dissented, and claimed that 
he knew what was best for the Administration in ^ew 
York ; that there were personal and party matters to 
be considered, which neither Mr. Chase nor Mr. Bates 
could understand so well as himself. I disclaimed any 
intention to meddle with New York parties or New 
York controversies ; but besides courtesies which it 
would be well always to observe, I insisted as a sound 
principle and correct rule of action that the heads of 
departments should, if they did not select, at least be 
consulted in regard to the appointments of their sub- 
ordinates. The President said I was right ; that to 
fill the New York appointments as Mr. Seward wished, 
without consulting the Secretary of the Treasury, and 
others directly interested, would, he was convinced, 
not be satisfactory. He was willing to hear any re- 
marks or suggestions relative to candidates, to take 
their recommendations ; but it must be distinctly un- 
derstood that there would be nothing conclusive until 
he advised with the heads of the departments interest- 
ed. With this, the meeting soon and somewhat ab- 
ruptly terminated. 

Mr. Thurlow Weed has related and published more 
than once what he deems a creditable proceeding, 
which exemplifies the Albany practice of making 
4 



74: MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

appointments, and the method of discharging the 
executive functions with which lie was familiar. He 
was going, he says, on a brief errand to Washington 
early in the administration, when he was requested by 
some of his party intimates to get a snug place for a 
naturalized Englishman wlio had for years been a 
willing runner, or whipper-in, for the Whigs of New 
York city, a sort of " Tim Linkenwater" Weed says, 
but who now wished to go home and spend his last 
days in a comfortable place in England. The request 
was cheerfully assented to, and Mr. Weed on the 
morning of his arrival, while at breakfast with the 
Secretary of State, communicated the wishes of their 
party friends, and was assured tlie solicited appoint- 
ment should be made. Immediately, without inquiry 
or investigation, and while they were at breakfast, the 
Secretary, with his accustomed promptness, ordered 
the removal of the consul at Falmouth and the ap- 
pointment of the party instrument " Tim Linkenwater** 
in his place. When Weed called at the State Depart- 
ment for the commission, Mr. Hunter, the old chief 
clerk, on delivering the document expressed his regret 
at the change. The consul whom you remove, said 
Mr. Hunter, is one of the most correct and efficient 
officers in the consular service, as was his father before 
him. That father was the open, steadfast, and true 
friend of our country in the war of independence. 
General Washington when President, in grateful 
remembrance of the sympathy and friendship of this 
English gentleman, appointed him consul at Falmouth; 
and on his death. General Jackson appointed the son, 
whom you now remove without fault or complaint 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 75 

after years of faithful service. It makes me sad, said 
tlie old clerk. AVeed acknowledged he was ashamed. 
His sensibilities were touched for the man ; there had 
been no thought for the faitliful incumbent or the 
welfare of the government. He declined to take the 
commission, and the removed consul was by Mr. Weed, 
not by Mr. Seward, reinstated without ever knowino- 
he had been displaced. Xo Secretary of State had 
ever before permitted a partisan editor to enter the 
State Department and take such freedom with impor- 
tant appointments. Mr. Weed assumes and is entitled 
to the credit of not finally consummating a wron<'- after 
he learned the facts, though he did not inquire into 
the case, nor did the State Department before ordering 
the removal. 



The "Memorial Address" declares that "no ex- 
periment so rash has ever been made as that of elevat- 
ing to the head of affairs a man with so little previous 
preparation for his task as Mr. Lincoln. If this be 
true of him in regard to the course of domestic admin- 
istration, with which he might be supposed partially 
familiar, it is eminently so in respect to the foreign 
relations of which he knew absolutely nothing." 

No greater mistake or misrepresentation could be 
made. Men vastly inferior to Mr. Lincoln, less quali- 
fied and less able, have been elected President ; and 
his general knowledge of our '' foreign relations," if 
not as minute in routine and current details as that of 
members of the Committee on Foreign delations, was 
more enlarged and comprehensive than that of many in 



76 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

those positions. Some of our countrymen, who live 
and die in retirement without ever holding office, give 
attention to those subjects, and are more capable of 
discharging the duties, and w^ould represent the gov- 
ernment abroad with more ability than the persons 
selected. Without specifying particulars on these mat- 
ters, I may mention that this man, w4io is represented 
as so totally ignorant and unlit, and so destitute of ex- 
perience, and who it is said '' absolutely knew noth- 
ing " — concerning them, showed intelligence, sound 
judgment, and correct views at the very commence- 
ment of the administration, on a most interesting occa- 
sion, above the Secretary of State, who was, by the 
standard of Mr. Adams, greatly his superior. In an 
important dispatch of the Secretary of State to Mr. 
Adams, who was then our Minister at London, Mr. 
Lincoln took the document, which he considered in 
some respects exceptional, criticised, modified, and with 
his own hand expurgated, corrected, and improved it, 
and changed its character. This paper related to the 
recognition of belligerent rights, was addressed to Mr. 
Adams, and is probably now on the files of the State 
Department in its original form, with the corrections 
and improvements of the President. Mr. Adams was 
doubtless unaware that the President, who, he says, 
*' absolutely knew nothing " of our foreign relations, 
was substantially the author of the instructions to him- 
self, and laid down the chart by which he was to be 
guided in a most important matter of national concern- 
ment. The President overruled and set aside some 
of the elaborate and important, but in his view, objec- 
tionable portions of the dispatch of Mr. Seward. 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 77 

These facts are known beyond the Cabinet circle, andi 
are consequently no secret. There were other marked' 
cases of intelligent supervision of our foreign affairs 
and their management by the President in the final 
summing up on important questions, which overthrow' 
the statements of Mr. Adams, who has an utterly false 
conception of the relative position, ability, and charac- 
ter of the two men of whom he speaks. To the Secre- 
tary of State, whose special duty it was to investigate 
and report upon international subjects, and prepare 
instructions to the re^presentatives of the government 
abroad, the President gave the same, perhaps closer 
attention than to the Secretary of the Navy, who 
issued instructions and orders to the commanders of 
squadrons and officers on special duty. In no respect 
was the Secretarj^ of State on a different footing in 
administering the government from other heads of 
departments nor did he infuse more vigor or character 
in the administration. He was more constant and 
unwearied than others in his attention to and atten- 
dance upon the President, made it a point to always 
accompany him in his visits to the army or wherever 
he appeared in public, and was personally very devoted 
to him, but never exercised higher executive authority 
or had " the more solid power to direct affairs for the^ 
benefit of the nation " than his associates. There were / 
in the foreign policy of the government during Mr. V 
Lincoln's administration fewer and less perplexing , 
questions, less serious complications than under several 
of our previous Presidents. But the domestic admin- 
istration from the commencei^ent to its close was one 
of unprecedented labor and responsibility requiring 



Y8 Mil. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

energy, vigilance, executive and administrative ability, 
such as had never before devolved on the Chief Maoris- 
trate or the government. The action and responsibil- 
ity of others were far greater than those devolved on 
the Secretary of State. 



It is admitted by Mr. Adams that, while wanting 
in the qualities of President, and while " no experi- 
ment so rash has ever been made as that of elevating^ 
to the head of affairs a man with so little previous 
preparation for his task as Mr. Lincoln," "he after- 
wards proved himself before the world, a pure, brave, 
honest man, faithful to his arduous work." Nothing 
more. It is still left to be inferred that though he 
meant well, he was incompetent and without ability to 
discharge the duties of his position, except under the 
direction of one of his subordinates who had really 
less to do than others in the domestic administration 
of the government. It does not occur to Mr. Adams 
that he under estimated the ability of the President of 
whom he personally knew little, and that the people 
formed a more correct estimate of their Chief Majes- 
trate's capacity than himself. He gives no credit to 
President Lincoln for far-seeino; sao:acitv, in which he 
excelled most men of his time ; for knowledge of the 
structure of the government and information on 
public aifairs, which he had studied with diligence 
and passionate fondness; for arduous and successful 
labors, though holding no office, endowed with no 
wealth, and aided by no metropolitan funds, in his 
great struggle for constitutional freedom ; for execu- 



UR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. TO 

five and administrative ability, for sound judgment, 
intellectual capacity, mental power, and practical 
knowledge, which enabled him to stand at the helm 
and guide the government through storms and dan- 
gers such as no country ever experienced. In all 
these qualities the impression is conveyed that this 
remarkable man was deficient, but that they were 
possessed by the Secretary of State, who was " not 
blind to the deficiencies of his chief." Indeed, the 
whole language, tune, tenor, sentiment, and intent of 
the address are to elevate Mr. Seward and depreciate 
Mr. Lincoln ; to award to the Secretary honors that 
clearl}^ belong to the President ; to make it appear 
that the subordinate controlled and directed the prin- 
cipal ; that the Secretary of State was de facto Presi- 
dent, and the President himself a mere locum tenens^ 
incompetent for the place from the want of '* experi- 
ence" and ''previous preparation." Mr. Seward had 
influence in the administration, but not control. His 
mental activity, the " marvellous fertility of his pen," 
his proneness to exercise authority and to make him- 
self conspicuous on every important subject and occa- 
sion, imposed on admiring and willing friends, who, 
like Mr. Adams, persuaded themselves that one so 
active and prominent must be the moving and direct- 
ing spirit of the administration. It would be difH- 
cult, however, for his most partial frien<]s to specify 
any financial, military, naval, territorial or general 
measure of administration, which had its origin with 
or was directed by the Secretary of State, while the 
President suggested some and directed all. Mr. 
Seward could adapt himself to, or adopt and appropri- 






80 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

ate the views of, others with wondei^ful facility and 
address could second their propositions, and support 
them with a zeal and earnestness which made them 
seem his own. 



Mr. Adams sajs he knows that in order to cut up 
by the roots the possibility of misunderstanding or 
rivalry between the President and Secretary of State, 
"Mr. Seward deliberately came to the conclusion to 
stifle every sensation left him of aspiration in the future, 
by establishing a distinct understanding with the Presi- 
dent on that subject." " Thus it happened that Mr, 
Seward vobmtarily dismissed forever the noblest 
dreams of an ambition he had the clearest right to in- 
dulge, in exchange for a more solid power to direct 
affairs for the benefit of the nation through the name 
of another, who should yet appear in all later time to 
reap the honors due chiefly to his labors." 

That Mr. Seward signified to the President he 
should not be a competitor with him for the office of 
Chief Magistrate in 1864 is not improbable, and but 
for the disparagement so ungenerously as well as unjust- 
ly thrown upon the President, who according to the 
" Memorial Address'' was " in all later times to reap 
the honors due chiefly to Mr. Seward's labors," the lat- 
ter should have the unrestricted credit of patriotic 
self-abnegation. But the truth must not be suppressed 
or perverted, and there are, aside from the act of dec- 
lination but connected with it, certain facts and cir- 
cumstances which are essential to a right understand- 



MK. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 81 

ing of the case, and which, if the subject be aUnded 
to, truth requires should not be omitted. 

In December 1862, the dissatisfaction which ex- 
isted in Congress and the country agaiust the imputed 
meddlesome interference and alles^ed mismanao^ement 
of the Secretary of State, and his supposed influence 
over the Executive, was such that a very general desire 
was expressed that he should leave the Cabinet and 
retire from the Administration. To some extent he 
had unwittingly and unintentionally contributed to the 
prevailing discontent by persistent and ostentatious 
exhibition of himself in public with the President 
when he visited the army, and indeed on every possible 
occasion, outside of the State Department. His 
claqueurs and supporters busied themselves in repre- 
senting that Mr. Seward was de facto President, and the 
" Memorial Address" falls into the same error by de- 
claring he was directing affairs. Mr. Seward gave en- 
couragement to these representations. They gratified 
his vanity and that of his supporters, but did not 
strengthen and fortif)^ him in Congress or with the 
public, as he and his friends anticipated would be the 
case, but really weakened him, and for a time were 
harmful to the President, towards whom the country 
was otherwise well inclined. Military reverses always 
weaken an administration. The people, however, are 
tolerant of the mistakes of their Chief !^[agistrate, and 
forbearing towards his honest errors, but are exacting 
and often intolerant towards subordinate or reputed 
favorites. Under national reverses they were lenient 
towards the President, and whatever was wrong they 
charged, sometimes improperly, on the secretaries, 
4" 



82 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

particnlarlj the one who assumed the " more solid 
power to direct affairs," and whom they held account- 
able, not entirely without reason, for certain executive 
indiscretions and for national misfortunes. 

When Congress convened in December, the senti- 
ment or prejudice against Mr. Seward was deep and 
severe, but he seemed not cognizant of it, nor was the 
President himself aware of its full extent. He could 
not have been wholly ignorant of the fact that there 
was a growing dislike of Mr. Seward and that he was 
opposed by many friends of the administration as well 
as opponents ; but he knew that others of the Cabinet 
were improperly censured and abused, and that he as 
well as they were in some cases unjustly assailed. No 
one, however, had warned either of the extreme dis- 
favor with which almost the whole community in those 
days viewed Mr. Seward — their want of confidence in 
his sincerity and judgment, and their belief that his 
intimacy and influence with the President were per- 
nicious. This erroneous, or, more properly speaking, 
exaggerated impression of the influence and power of 
the Secretary of State which the partisans of Mr. Sew- 
ard had inculcated, in the mistaken belief that it would 
increase his strength to the same extent that it injur- 
ed the President — a mistake into which Mr. Adams 
appears to have fallen — carried with it the idea that 
the President permitted himself to be persuaded and 
misled by his subordinate to do acts against his own 
better judgment. The assiduous attentions of the 
Secretar}^ of State could scarcely fail to have some 
effect on the President, especially in minor matters, to 
which he could not always, in the overwhelming mul- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWAED. 83 

tiplicity of affairs, give that minute attention which he 
wished. Intimacy, companionship would unavoidably 
cany with it more or less influence, and in that view 
the Secretary had influence which he was forward to 
exhibit and not reluctant to exercise, sometimes un- 
fortunately for the President and the country. It 
was notorious that the partisan friends of Mr. Seward 
were anxious to have it believed he was the power be- 
hind the President who controlled the action of the 
government, and some of his own oracular sayings 
and doings tended to that belief. 

A brief interchange of views among the members 
after Congress assembled led to the disclosure of great 
unanimity of opinion adverse to the Secretary of State, 
which resulted in a meeting of the Pepublican Sena- 
tors on the ITth of December, at which, resolutions in 
opposition to him and requesting that he should be dis- 
missed, were adopted with but one dissenting voice. 
A committee of nine Senators, embracing some of the 
ablest and most eminent men of that body, at the head 
of which was the venerable Judge Collamer of Ver- 
mont, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was ap- 
pointed, and instructed to wait upon the President and 
communicate to him the general conviction that the 
continuance of Mr. Seward in office would be injurious 
to the administration and the country, and to make 
known to him a request on the part of the Senators 
assembled that the services of Mr. Seward should be 
dispensed with. 

These extraordinary proceedings were immediately 
communicated to Secretary Seward, before the com- 
mittee had waited upon the President, by Senator 



84 MR. LINCOLN AND MK. SEWARD. 

King of Kew York, the only gentleman who had 
opposed them. Mr. Seward promptly and properly 
tendered his resio^nation. It is not essential to enter 
into the details of that movement further than to say 
that Mr. Lincoln defeated it, and in doing so, demon- 
strated to Senators and Cabinet executive ability, tact, 
and power such as Mr. Adams never knew he possessed, 
and consequently fails to appreciate. Although sur- 
prised and grieved by what was done and what he 
learned, thie President did not submit to Senatorial 
dictation, nor permit the Executive Department of the 
government to be overborne or invaded. Mr. Seward 
was not dismissed, nor was his resignation accepted, 
nor did he wish it to be accepted. The attempt to 
drive him from the State Department really strength- 
ened him in the position, but there is no doubt the 
movement had in some respects a beneficial effect in 
restraining his officiousness and in arousing Mr. Lin- 
coln's attention to it. The scheming party manage- 
ment, which had been defeated first at Chicago and 
subsequently in the formation of the Cabinet, but 
which had adroitly undertaken to control and regulate 
the Administration, was by these Senatorial proceed- 
ings rebuked and again defeated. Some of the active 
Congressional friends who had favored the nomination 
of Mr. Seward at Chicago had become'dissatisfied with 
him and his demonstrations, and were most forward 
in asking that he should not be permitted to longer 
discharge the duties of Secretary of State. 

It was at this juncture, when he became conscious 
that he had no longer a party to sustain him — when 
he saw all the Senate, and it may be added, about the 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 85 

whole of the representative body opposed to him — 
when there was not a single state, nor any party in 
any state, in his favor — that " Mr. Seward deliberately 
came to the conclusion to stifle every sensation left in 
him of aspiration in the future," and '* dismiss forever 
the noblest dreams of ambition,'- not that he might be 
or was* thereby able to '' direct aifiiirs," nur yet with 
the conviction that Abraham Lincoln " should reap the 
honors due chiefly to his labors," but because any idea 
of political preferment was to him utterly hopeless. 
It is an incontrovertible truth that he had the confi- 
dence and support of no party, and was consequently 
wanting in that power which derives its strength from 
public opinion. 



Perhaps no one occurrence better illustrates the 
executive and administrative course of Mr. Seward, 
than certain proceedings in relation to mails taken on 
captured vessels. Very little publicity was given to 
the subject at the time, though it was the cause of 
frequent and earnest discussion, and of a somewhat 
extensive and elaborate correspondence. 

I received on the last day of October, 1S62, a brief 
note from Mr. Seward, saying: ''It is thought expe- 
dient that instructions be given to the blockading and 
naval oflicers, that in case of capture of merchant ves- 
sels suspected or proved to bo vessels of the insurgents 
or contraband," the mails should '' not be searched 
or opened, but be put as speedily as may be conve- 
nient on the way to their designated destinations." 
By whom it was " thought expedient" that such ille- 



86 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

gal " instructions" should be given, and an essential 
national right renounced in the midst of war when 
most needed, did not appear. The note, though char- 
acteristic, was of such a tenor tliat I gave it no atten- 
tion whatever, except to say to Mr. Seward within a 
day or two, probably at our next meeting, that I had 
received it, that I disliked its tone, and knew not its 
object, or whether it was private or official, but it 
could not be expected I would carry it into effect. 
He made a passing reply that he had great difficulty 
in keeping the peace and satisfying foreign demands, 
particuhirly the English, who were very exacting. 
There the matter rested, and I supposed was ended ; 
but six months later he came to my house, Saturday 
evening, the 11th of April, with a letter from Lord 
Lyons enclosing an extract from Mr. Archibald, the 
English Consul in 'New York, who liad written his 
lordship that the mail-bag of the Peterhoff, a captured 
vessel, was in the prize-commissioner's office, " that 
the court had directed the mail parcels should be 
opened in order to see what letters were enclosed 
relating to the cargo on board the ship, and requested 
that I would open the package and select such letters 
as appeared to me to relate to the cargo on board or 
to the consignee mentioned in the manifest, and to 
take charge of the residue, with a view of forwarding 
them to their destination." With this request the 
consul refused to comply, and imniediately informed 
Lord Lyons, who wrote Mr. Seward that " all these 
proceedings seem to me to be so contrary/ to the spirit 
of your letter to the Secretary of the Navy of the 31st 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 87 

of October, that I cannot help hoping you will send 
orders by telegraph to stop them." 

I asked Mr. Seward if he had telegraphed or writ- 
ten as requested. He said he had not ; it was not 
strictly within the province of the State Department ; 
the court would not be likely to be governed by any- 
thing from him on a subject of naval concern; he 
therefore wished me to send word to the court to give 
up the mail. I assured him I was not prepared to send 
any such order ; that I could not do it without a vio- 
lation of law, and that the judge knew his duty too 
well to regard such an order from him or me ; that the 
mails were legally in the custody of the court, and 
ought not to be given up without examination, for, in 
all probability, the best, and perhaps the only evidence 
that the Peterhoff was a good prize, was to be found in 
the mail bag. It would be wrong toward the govern- 
ment and unjust to the captors to part with this evi- 
dence. 

He was greatly disturbed ; said he was committed 
by his letter to me of the thirty-first of October, 
which had directed and virtually pledged the gov- 
ernment that the mails should be given up without 
search. I replied that he was not authorized to give 
any such direction or pledge ; that it was contrary 
not only to usage but to international and statute law ; 
that I had paid no attention to his note, which was 
irregular and improper, as well as illegal, subversive 
of usao^e, and an unauthorized abandonment of a na- 
tional riglit, which would be most injurious to the 
navy and the country ; that as regarded any personal 
humiliation in recalling or disavowing it, no one but 



88 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

myself was aware he had ever written such a note, and 
it had entirely passed from my mind. He answered 
that he had given a copy of it, and it had been read 
and received as authority in Parliament. ■ Our gov- 
ernment would be holden to the promise he had made. 
But, said I, you could make no promise to override 
the law, or against law ; the letter was not an execu- 
tive order, an act of Congress, or a treaty stipulation. 
I regretted that it had been written, still more that it 
was published, for it was supercilious and improper on 
his part to undertake to instruct the Secretary of the 
Navy as he would a subordinate ; that it was unfortu- 
nate such a note, unofficial and of no authority what- 
ever, should have been made public. It was discour- 
teous for him to address such a letter to me ; disre- 
spectful and wrong to have communicated such an un- 
authorized missive to the English Minister ; that they 
were not aware he was not empowered to instruct me 
or any of his colleagues ; that this subject had never 
been a matter of Cabinet consultation, and was in no 
sense an administration measure. He left me at a late 
hour, and after a pretty earnest conversation, to see 
Lord Lyons. The Minister was unyielding, and the 
question was carried to the President, who frankly 
stated that the subject was new to him ; that he was 
not familiar with maritime law or the law of prize. I 
turned his attention to our statutes, which were clear 
and explicit. The law of 1789, our earliest statute, 
says : " All papers, charter-parties, bills of ladin-, 
passports, and other writings whatsoever found on 
board any ship or ships which shall be taken, shall be 
carefully preserved, and the originals sent to the courts 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 89 

of justice for maritime affairs," confirmed by the law 
of 1800, and subsequent enactments. 

Eminent counsel were consulted, and authorities 
hunted up, but the whole array was against the unau- 
thorized, illegal, and ill-considered note of the thirty- 
first of October. For days and weeks the subject was 
under consideration, and the more clear and unques- 
tionable the case appeared, and the greater the embar- 
rassment of Mr. Seward, the deeper were the Presi- 
dent's sympathies for him and the stronger his wish to 
extricate the Secretary from a dilemma into which he 
had been apparently unwittingly seduced. The trans- 
action was studiously withheld from Cabinet consulta- 
tions. Mr. Seward had, it seemed, in a weak and un- 
guarded moment, attempted to show to Mr. Stuart, of 
the British legation, his autliority and power as Secre- 
tary of State ; that he was virtually the premier and the 
controlling mind of the Government ; that he could 
issue orders to his associates in the Cabinet as he would 
to subordinates, and regulate international questions 
by a mere dash of his pen, without regard to the 
President and Cabinet, the Senate or Congress. But 
when the question came to a practical issue, and he 
was required to show his authority to make regulations 
for the navy, to set aside the laws of the country, to 
disregard international law and usage, his ill-timed 
letter and assumption of power came home with terri- 
ble effect. Law and usage and the practice of nations 
could not be overturned b}^ a flippant note from the 
head of a department. Only an Act of Congress or a 
treaty duly ratified could do what the Secretary of 
State, with all the experience and superior intelligence 



90 ME. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWAED. 

awarded him by Mr. Adams, attempted to do, in order 
to gratify a subordinate in the British legation, who 
had an object in view, and gained his point by sedu- 
cing the Secretary, whose vanity was susceptible. 
When I asked if this renunciation of a right, which 
would impair the efficiency of the navy and operate 
injuriously to our national interest, was reciprocal, 
whether the British Government had consented, in 
case of war, to also abandon the right, M. Seward ad- 
mitted they had come under no obligation to that ef- 
fect, but he had no doubt they would. His principal 
justification, however, was the unfriendly feeling of 
Great Britain, which he declared was very hostile, and 
that it was his constant labor and duty to pacify and 
appease that government. This necessity, he said, 
had driven him to extraordinary concessions, and in 
promising the surrender of the mails without examina- 
tion he had acted in the interest of peace. In other 
words, he had disregarded law, renounced an essential 
right at a critical period of the war without reciprocity, 
without an equivalent, without Cabinet consultation, 
and submitted and yielded to the illegal exactions of 
the English legation. 

Senator Sumner, chairman of the Committee on 
Foreign Relations, in whose superior intelligence and 
information on questions of international law Presi- 
dent Lincoln had great confidence, and whom he often 
consulted on conflicting and troublesome subjects with 
foreign powers, became greatly interested in this ques- 
tion. He assured the President that the Secretary of 
the Navy was right, and the State Department wrong. 
But Mr. Seward insisted that the British Government 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWADO. 91 

was sensitive, and if we opened and exaniiijed the 
mails they would avail themselves of the occasion to 
make war. This the President dreaded. I claimed 
that the best way to avert war was a fearless mainte- 
nance of our rights ; that to abandon or renounce our 
rights from fear or threat would be humiliation and 
weakness. The point was one on which the Presi- 
dent assumed the Secretary of State must be correctly 
informed, and, horrified with the idea of irritating 
Great Britain, which Mr. Seward insisted would be in- 
evitable, and all his sympathies being with the Secre- 
tary, he thought it expedient to accede to Lord Lyons' 
demand, and surrender the PeterhofF mails. 

Mr. Seward did not call and inform me after the 
interview on the evening of Saturday, the 11th of 
April, of C.iC result of his visit to Lord L3'ons, but I 
received on Monday the 13th, a note from him enclos- 
ing a letter from the Minister, written on the 9th, with 
extracts from a correspondence between Pear-Admiral 
Bailey and the British Yice-Consul at Key West in 
which Lord Lyons said : "■ It would seem from these 
that the mail found on board the captured steamer Pe- 
terhoff has been dealt with both at Key West, and at 
New York in a manner which is oiot in accordance 
with the views of the government of the United States 
as stated in your letter to the Secretary of the Navy 
of the 31st of October last.'' Mr. Seward's letter, en- 
closing this correspondence was written on Saturday 
the 11th, before his evening interview with me at my 
house and previous to his reception of the second letter 
from Lord Lyons, which he brought tome, ^\•ith notice 
from Mr. Archibald statinii: the mail was in the hands of 



92 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

the prize-commissioners. This letter of the 11th reach- 
ed me on Monday morning, and having in view our con- 
versation on Saturday evening, I embraced the oppor- 
tunity of sending him at once the following reply : 

"Navy Department. 

April 13, 1863. 
"Sir:— 

"I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of 
your communication of the 11th inst. enclosing a note 
of Lord Lyons' and correspondence relative to the mail 
of the Peterhoff. 

"His lordship complains that the Peterhoff's mails 
were dealt with ' both at Key West and at New York in 
a manner which is not in accordance with the views of 
the government of the United States, as stated in your 
letter to the Secretary of the Kavy, of the 31st Octo- 
ber last.' 

" Acting Rear-Admiral Bailey, an extract from whose 
letter is enclosed in the correspondence transmitted 
on the 14th ult., gave Her Majesty's Consul at Key West 
an authenticated copy of the law of the United States, 
and of the instructions based thereon, on the subject of 
papers which strictly belong to captured vessels and 
the mails. By special direction of the President, unu- 
sual courtesy and concession were made to neutrals in 
the instructions of the 18tli August last to Naval offi- 
cers, who themselves were restricted and prohibited 
from examining^ or breaking: the seals of the mail-bairs, 
parcels, etc., which they might find on board of captur- 
ed vessels, under any pretext, but were authorized at 
their discretion to deliver them to the consul, command- 
ing naval officer, or the legation of the foreign govern- 
ment to be opened, upon the understanding that what- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MK. SEWAKD. 93 

ever is contraband, or important as evidence concerning 
the character of a captured vessel, will be remitted to 
the prize-court. 

"On the 31st of October last, I had the honor to 
receive from you a note suggesting the expediency of 
instructing naval officers that, in case of capture of 
merchant vessels suspected or found to be, vessels 
of insurgents or contraband, the public mails of every 
friendly or neutral power, duly certified or authenticated 
as such, shall not be searched or opened, but be put as 
speedily as may be convenient on the way to their 
designated destination. As I did not concur in the 
propriety or 'expediency' of issuing instructions so 
manifestly in conflict with all usage and practice, and 
the law itself, and so detrimental to the legal rights of 
ca^)tors, who would thereby be frequently deprived of 
the best, if not the only evidence that would insure 
condemnation of the captured vessel, no action was 
taken on the suggestions of the letter of the 31st 
October, as Lord Lyons seems erroneously to have 
supposed. 

" In the only brief conversation that I ever remember 
to have had with you, I expressed my opinion that we 
had in the instructions of the 18th of August, gone to 
the utmost justifiable limit on this subject. The idea 
that our naval officers should be compelled to forward 
the mails found on board the vessels of the insurgents — 
tliat foreign offi(.'ials would have the sanction of this 
government in confiding tlieir mails to blockade-runners 
and vessels contraband, and that without judicial or 
other investigation, the officers of our service should 
hasten such mails, without examination to their desti- 
nation, was so repugnant to my own convictions, that 
I came to the conclusion it was only a passing sug- 



94 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

gestion, and the subject was therefore dropped. Until 
the receipt of your note of Saturday, I was not aware 
that Lord Lyons was cognizant such a note had been 
written. Acting Rear-Admiral Bailey has acted strictly 
in accordance with the law and his instructions in the 
matter of the PeterhofTs mail. The dispatch of Lord 
Lyons is herewith returned. 

" I am respectfully, 

" Your obed't servant, 

" Gideon Welles, 
" &ecH'y of Navy.''' 
"Hon. Wm. H. Seward, 

" Sec'thj of Stated 
This letter exhibiting our different views and opin- 
ions, would I supposed, cause the subject to be brouglit 
before the President and Cabinet ; but instead of this, 
Mr. Seward wrote me on the 15th, that he had sub- 
mitted the subject to the President who approved his 
course, that the Peterhoff's mail was to be given up, 
and that it was an inauspicious time to * raise new 
questions or pretensions under the belligerent right of 
search.' This hasty committal of the President w^as a 
sort of snap judgment so unlike him, and so inconsis- 
tent with his character and general course, that it was 
evident to my mind that confiding in the Secretary of 
State, he had given his sanction to the proceeding with- 
out a full knowledge of the facts, or of the irregular 
and illegal act which renounced our unquestioned 
right, and, if made a precedent, would work serious 
injury to the country. I was not willing therefore, 
that the question should be thus summarily disposed 
of nor to remain quiet under the admonition reypect- 
ing *new questions or pi-etensions.' The warning 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 95 

that Great Britain would take offence — an arffument 
often used to affect the President on doubtful or dis- 
puted points by the State Department, I knew how to 
appreciate, and therefore wrote the following : 

" Navy Department. 

April 18, 1863. 
" Sir :— 

" I have had the honor to receive your note of the 
15th inst. in reference to the mails of the Peterhoff 
which are in possession of the prize-court in New York. 
I am not aware that this Department has raised any 
'new questions or pretensions under the belligerent 
right of search,' in the case of the mails of the Peter- 
hoff. Had there been ground for such an imputation, 
it could hardly, on an occasion to which so much impor- 
tance lias been given, have escaped the observation of 
Lord Lyons. He however, advances no such charge, 
directly or by implication, and founds the demand made 
by him exclusively on the concession which he, apparently 
through some knowledge of the details of your letter to 
rae of the 31st October, had been erroneously led to 
believe was made by this government, in instructions 
given to the commanders of its vessels of war. 

"The true question in the j)resent case is, whether the 
administration of the law sliall be suffered to take its 
ordinary course, or whether the court established to ad- 
minister the law, and which has certainly been in exis- 
tence long enough to know its powers and duties, shall 
be arrested in the discharge of its functions by an order 
of the Executive, issued on the demand of a foreign gov- 
ernment, which exhibits no evidence, and in fact makes 
no charge that law or usage has been violated on our 
part. 



96 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

" If the Peterhoff was captured and sent to the prize- 
court without any reasonable grounds for such a pro- 
ceeding, then undoubtedly the opening of the mails, if it 
takes place, may have been an illegal act — but in my 
judgment, not otherwise. If it is to be assumed that 
the capture was wrongful, not only the mails, but the 
vessel and cargo should at once be surrendered. 

"It may be an * unfavorable time to raise new ques- 
tions or pretensions,' but it is certainly no time to re- 
nounce any right or to unsettle any long and well-estab- 
lished principles and usage. Such a surrender would be 
a confession of weakness which, even if it existed, it 
would be inexpedient and injurious to make known to 
our enemies. If the case be one of doubt, it will be time 
enough to yield when the doubt is dispelled, and we are 
found to have been in the wrong. We may then yield 
and make amends. 

" I do not consider it necessary to discuss the question 
of genuine or spurious and simulated mails ; but will 
merely suggest that if what pretends to be a mail is to 
be considered, in all cases, prima facie sacred, and ex- 
empt from examination, it will hereafter be found ex- 
ceedingly difficult, in practice, to distinguish the spuri- 
ous from the genuine ; nor indeed would there be any 
necessity for the fabrication of a spurious mail. 

" In the meantime I cannot but hold that the prize- 
court is lawfully in possession of the mail-bag in ques- 
tion, and that the court itself is the proper authority to 
adjudge and determine what disposition shall be made 
of it, I propose to avoid all new questions by leaving 
the whole matter to this ancient method of adjustment, 
established by the consent of nations, and it was in 
order to avoid innovations, as well as to maintain our 
national rights and the legal rights of the captors, that 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 97 

the suggestions contained in your note of the 31st of 
October were not adopted by this Department. 
" I am, respectfully, 

" Your obed't serv*t, 

" Gideon Welles, 

'' Sec't'y of JSTavy:' 
" Hon. Wm. H. Seward, 

" Sec't'y of State:* 
Before sending this letter I read it to the President 
who was evidently surprised and somewhat disturbed 
by it. He said that the subject was one with which 
he w\as not familiar — that he had no time to investi- 
gate it and must depend on those of us who under- 
stood it, that his great object was to keep the peace 
which was much endangered, he thought it unneces- 
sary to bring the matter before a full Cabinet — Seward 
he said was sensitive, he wished me to send Seward the 
letter, and if he did not bring it to his notice, wliich I 
doubted i'rom what had already occurred, said he 
would call it up for further action. 

At the Cabinet meeting on the 21st he requested 
Mr. Seward and myself to remain after the adjourn- 
ment, and when we were alone, made known that his 
object was to get at the right of the question in rela- 
tion to the seizure of foreign mails. A long and ani- 
mated discussion took place in which Mr. Seward 
dwelt at length on the great changes which had taken 
place in regard to mails during the last fifty years, 
and that nations must move forward with the improve- 
ments of the age; spoke of the Trent affair and the 
concessions that were then made, of the necessity of 
keeping at this time on good terms with England and 
5 



98 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

said, that the measures he had taken had been with 
the President's approval. 

I thought it unnecessary to discuss the changes that 
had taken place in regard to the mails which constitu- 
ted the principal part of his remarks, for whatever 
they were, law and usage and the practice of nations 
could not be set aside, except by legislation or treaty, 
denied that the Trent was a parallel case, and main- 
tained that the legitimacy of the capture and the dis- 
position of the mails belonged by law to the courts 
and not to the executive. 

The President said he had no distinct recollection 
that the subject of captured mails had been brought 
to his notice, but Mr. Seward was doubtless right for 
it was his work. The Trent case he did not consider 
analagous, but he thought the executive had perhaps 
some rights in the matter though he was not certain 
what they were, nor what had been tlie practice. The 
discussion closed by his saying he wished to be thor- 
oughly informed on the subject, and in order to be in- 
formed and to hold us each responsible for our posi- 
tions he would address to us certain interrogatories 
which we could respectively answer. Mr. Seward re- 
marked that there was no time, that Lord Lyons was 
pressing him, claiming that we had conceded the point. 
I replied that Great Britian had no claim whatever 
except under his note of the 31st of October which I 
regarded as unofficial and of no authority until our 
statutes were repealed. 

On the next day I received from tlie President the 
interrogatories addressed mutually to the Secretary of 
State and myself which I insert with my answer. 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 99 

"Executive Mansion, April 21, 1863. 
" Hon. Secretaries of State and Navy. 

" Gentlemen, 

"It is 
now a practical question for this government whether 
a government mail of a neutral power, found on 
board a vessel captured by a belligerent power, on 
charge of breach of blockade, shall be forwarded to its 
designated destination, without opening ; or shall be 
placed in custody of the prize-court to be in the dis- 
cretion of the court, opened and searched for evidence 
to be used on the trial of the prize case. I will thank 
each of you to furnish me : 

" First, a list of all cases wherein such question has 
been passed upon, either by a diplomatic or a judicial 
decision, 

" Secondly, all cases wherein mails under such cir- 
cumstances have been without special discussion either 
forwarded unopened, or detained and opened in search 
of evidence. I wish these lists to embrace as well the 
reported cases in the books generally, as the cases per- 
taining to the present war in the United States, 

" Thirdly, a statement and brief argument of what 
would be the dangers and evils of forwarding such mails 
unopened, 

" Fourthly, a statement and brief argument of what 
would be the dangers and evils of detaining and open- 
ing such mails, and using the contents, if pertinent, as 
evidence, 

" And lastly, any general remarks that may occur to 
you or either of you. 

^' Your Obed't Serv't, 

" A. Lincoln." 



100 mr. lincoln and mr. seward. 

*'Navy Department, 

April 25, 1863. 
"Sir:— 

" I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of 
your communication of the 21st inst. in which you di- 
rect me to furnish certain information, which is called for 
by you in consequence of the application made by the 
British Minister, Lord Lyons, for the delivery without 
examination by the prize-court, of the government mail 
found on board the Peterhoff ; a British vessel recently 
captured and brought into the port of New York. 

" This application had previously been made known to 
this Department, and was urged upon it not as a request, 
but, as I understood, a demand founded on a communi- 
cation by which a right is assumed to have been yielded 
by this government. 

" It is, I believe, nowhere claimed by Lord Lyons or 
the parties in interest, that by any law or usage of this 
or any other country, or by any j^rinciple or practice 
amonsf nations that this examination should not be made, 
but it is urged, or demanded that the mail shall be giv- 
en up and the evidence essential to condemnation sur- 
rendered, by reason of a letter from the Secretary of 
State, under date of October 31st, 1862, addressed to the 
Secretary of the Navy, suggesting instructions to our 
naval officers. The proposed instructions would in my 
judgment have been such a renunciation of the rights 
of the nations and of the captors that the suggestions 
were never carried into eifect. 

" The pretension that mail-bags found on board ves- 
sels captured at sea, should be exempt from examination 
by a prize-court appears to the Department not only 
novel and startling, but, if admitted, pregnant with the 
most serious consequences. A recognition of it would 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 101 

seem to be nothing less than a surrender of all the 
rights of the captor government in such courts. 

" The Department, after inquiry, can find no pre- 
cedent for such a pretension — no case in which it has 
been either asserted diplomatically or affirmed judicially. 
The right of examining all papers, of whatsoever 
nature, found on board a captured vessel appears to have 
been always exercised. 

"Our own earliest statute on the subject, the Act of 
March 2, 1789, for the Government of the Navy directs 
that : 

" * All papers^ charter-parties bills of lading, pass- 
ports, and other writings whatsoever^ found on board any 
ship or ships which shall be taken, shall be carefully pre- 
served, and the originals sent to the courts of justice for 
maritime affairs.' 

So too the Act of April 23, 1800 : 

" 'The commanding officers of every ship or vessel in 
the navy, who shall capture or seize upon any vessel as 
a prize, shall carefully preserve all the papers and writ- 
ings found on board, and transmit the whole of the orig- 
inals unmutilated to the judge of the district to which 
such prize is ordered to proceed.' 

"Our law on this subject is borrowed from the British 
law and practice. The instructions of the King to 
commanders of letters-of-marque, issued September 29, 
1798, direct them to bring and deliver to the admiralty 
judge: 

" * All such papers, passes, sea-briefs, charter-parties, 
bills of lading, cockets, letters and other docun\ents and 
icritings as shall be delivered up 'or found o?i board 
any ship.' (2 Rob. Appendix No. VIII.) 

" It has never been pretended that these instructions, 
which except no letters or papers whatsoever, whether 



102 MK. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWAED. 

contained in mail-bags or not, are in violation of inter- 
national law. And yet for what purpose are all the 
letters and writings found on board, without exception, 
to be delivered to the admiralty judge if not to be used 
as evidence in the case ? 

"The 'standing interrogatories' administered to all 
witnesses in every prize, British, or American, direct 
them to state under oath, — 16th Interrogate — 'What 
papers, bills of lading, letters or other loritings were on 
board the ship at the time she took her departure from 
the last clearing port, before her being taken as a prize ? 
Were any of them burnt, torn, thrown overboard, de- 
stroyed or cancelled, or attempted to be concealed, and 
when, and by whom, and who was then present? ' 

" What necessity could exist for destroying or attempt- 
ing to conceal * letters or other writings' if, by simply 
enclosing them in a mail-bag, they were exempted from 
examination ? The very reason for destroying or 
attempting to conceal them is, that the mail-bag is 7iot 
exempt from examination by the court. And the very 
reason for making it all important to seek and find the 
information concealed in letters is, that without such 
information, there would hardly in any case be sufficient 
proof to condemn a vessel. So far as it respects the 
ordinary ship's papers — clearance, manifests, etc,, every 
vessel would appear innocent. 

" Xo rule can be better known,' says Sir Wra. Scott, 
' than that neutral masters are not at liberty to destroy 
papers ; or if they do, that they will not be permitted 
to explain away such a suppression by saying they were 
only private letters.' (The Two Brothers, 1 Rob. 134.) 

" This rule, so well known, must have originated from 
the practice of destroying papers, and such practice 
necessarily implies the practice of searching for, seizing 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 103 

and sending in for judicial examination all papers, 
including 'private letters.' 

" The British practice of seizing such private letters 
and using them in evidence in the prize-court will 
appear from the case of the Romea (0 Rob). The report 
of the case shows that the commander of a British gun- 
brig, in the exercise of the right of search, had stopped 
an American vessel,' ' had examined her papers and 
finding a letter which purported to disclose the real 
state of a transaction which had been fraudulently 
concealed, had sent the paper in question to the King's 
proctor, officially, but without detaining the ship in 
which it was found.' The letter was a private letter 
having no relation to the vessel in Avhicli it was found, 
or tlie cargo of that vessel, but, relating to another vessel. 

"In the case of the Atlanta (6 Rob.), Sir Wra. Scott 
refers to the case of the Lisette * which had carried a 
Dutch packet in the Danish mail-hag.'^ How could this 
have been known but by examining the Danish mail-bag ? 

"In the case of the Caroline (6 Rob.) dispatches from 
the Minister and Consul of France in the United States 
to the government of France were found on board an 
American vessel. As it had never been decided and was 
not in this case decided, that carrying such dispatches 
was ground for condemnation, it is presumed tliat these 
dispatches were not concealed on board the Caroline but 
found in the ship's letter-bag. 

" The practice of our courts, so far as is known, has 
been in conformity with that of the British. Our 
statute peremptorily directs that all ' papers and 
writings found on board ' a captured vessel shall be sent 
to the district judge. The Department is not aware of 
any exception taken to this law until very recently ; 
thouo"h in the numerous captures which have been m:ule 



104 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

during the present war, mail-bags containing important 
correspondence must have been frequently transmitted 
to the prize-court. If there had been any yiolatiou of 
international law or usage in this course it is not to be 
doubted that we should have been very promptly 
reminded of it, and in earnest terms. Yet it is not 
until near the close of the second year of the war, that 
anything in the nature of a remonstrance appears, and 
then the remonstrance is, not against a departure from 
international law or usage, but against the tenure of a 
surrender of an independent and established right made 
and communicated to the British Minister without 
alleged authority from the President, and as is believed 
by this Department, in direct contravention of the 
ancient policy of this and other governments, and of the 
rights and duties of captors as defined by statute. 

" That there may be in the discretion of the prize- 
court some exception to an indiscriminate examination 
of all letters and writings found on board of a captured 
ship, may be admitted in cases when such exception 
does not interfere with the proper evidence ; and no 
doubt such exceptions have been made in practice in 
favor of official dispatches. They have been regulated, 
however, not by strict international law, but rather as a 
matter of comity between nations. 

" If a mail-bag on board a captured vessel is to be 
held sacred and free from judicial examination, what 
security will there be that it does not conceal and 
protect the proof which the captor requires to condemn 
his prize, and which would be sufficient to condemn it ? 
No government could give such assurance without a 
previous examination of all the private letters admitted 
into the bag. Few private individuals would be content 
to have their letters examined by government officials, 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 105 

before being admitted into the mail, although they 
might be willing to run the risk of their being examined 
by belligerents during the war. 

'' And if individuals are willing to run this risk, why 
should their government insist on protecting them 
against it ? Why indeed, shouhl the most exacting 
government insist on anything more than that its own 
dispatches, certified as such, or claimed as such by re- 
sponsible officers, should, when known to be such, be free 
from scrutiny. There would be little difficulty in 
framing an arrangement to this effect. 

" No such arrangement is now in existence, except, as 
before stated, informally, perhaps by custom, and in con- 
formity Avith the comity due to friendly or neutral govern 
ments in reference to their admitted official dispatches. 

" The instructions which were issued by this Depart- 
ment on tjie 18th August last, to commanders of vessels 
of the Navy, authorizing them to use their discretion in 
delivering up government mails or dispatches found on 
board captured vessels, to be opened and examined in 
their presence, merely empowered them to exercise a 
comity towards neutral or friendly governments, the 
exercise of which might be safely entrusted to those 
who were on the spot, had the means of judging, and 
being interested in the capture, were not likely to show 
undue indulgence. The only doubt entertained by me 
as to those instructions was, whether they were in strict 
conformity with our statute and with the rights of the 
captors. But in deference to the State Department 
communicating with foreign powers, it seemed possible 
to presume that the Executive government here might 
have so much discretionary power in such cases. 

" These instructions, however, I considered a stretch 
of power on the part of this Department, and even of 
5* 



106 MR. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWARD. 

the Executive, and when it was proposed shortly after 
wards that they should be put in the form of a positive 
injunction to forward immediately to their destination 
all government mails found on captured vessels, a very 
little reflection sufficed to convince me that no such 
order ought to be issued. 

" But unfortunately, it has been taken for granted that 
a mere suggestion made without alleged authority by 
the President, and by this Department at once objected to, 
was carried into immediate execution ; and what is more 
unfortunate, at least one foreign government has been led 
apparently to adopt the very same erroneous conclusion. 

" Such presumption is wholly unathorized and is incom- 
patible with the nature and organization of our govern- 
ment. Under our constitution and laws the Chief Ma- 
gistrate gives, or is supposed to give, directly to the head 
of each of the principal departments his orde;'s in rela- 
tion to the business of the departments respectively, and 
this most especially in all matters of natiotial importance. 

" And in all matters — especially important matters — 
affecting the international relations of the government, 
or its rights as a belligerent, even the Chief Magistrate 
might hesitate to adjust questions by an executive order, 
but would prefer to make them the subject of reciprocal 
treaty stipulations, duly considered and clearly exjDressed 
to be submitted to the scrutiny of the body whose con- 
currence is necessary. 

" There is nothing to justify the presumption that this 
government would at a time like the present, surrender 
any of its belligerent rights by an executive order, in pur- 
suance of a mere suggestion, not even reciprocal in its na- 
ture, and especially when such concession would effect- 
ually deprive it of all the advantages of the right of search. 

"It is remarkable that in our traditional anxiety to 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 107 

protect in treaty stipulations at every point all the rights 
of neutrals, we have never attempted to reserve mails, 
or mail-bags, or mail-matter from the scrutiny of a prize- 
court. On the contrary we have always recognized 
that by the law of prize, mail-matter may be contra- 
band — for enemy's dispatches are mail matter and no 
prize-court in the United States, or in any other country, 
has ever doubted that they were contraband. In our 
treaty with New Granada we stipulate for the inviola- 
bility of correspondence on its land transit across the 
isthmus from ocean to ocean, but we abstain from at- 
tempting to make it inviolable on the sea. In our treaty 
with the Argentine Republic we stipulate, reciprocally the 
free access of mail-packets to the ports of the contracting 
parties, but there is no record in the treaty, excepting 
them or their mail-bairs out of the bellio-erent rio-ht and 
law of search and judicial examination. On the contrary, 
Hautefeuille — perhaps the most eminent living publicist 
of France, and known as preeminently the champion of 
the rights of neutrals — in his very last publication, 
elicited by the affair of the Trent, does not hesitate ex- 
pressly to affirm, that no mail steam-packet can, in its 
quality of a regular and recognized government mail- 
carrier, claim immunity from search, and much less of 
course from judicial examination. In the war with 
Mexico we, as a mere favor, permitted the ingress of 
British mail-steamers into Mexican blockaded ports. The 
mail-steamer Teviot abused the indulgence by carrying 
in the Mexican General Parades. We thereupon asserted 
diplomatically, our right both to condemn the Teviot 
and to withdraw the privilege from all the mail-packets. 
The British government made no denial of our position 
and settled the matter satisfactorily. [Mr. Bancroft to 
Lord Palmerston, Oct. 8, 1847.] 



108 ME. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWAED. 

"On these grounds of judicial authority, of ancient 
practice, of statute law, and of public policy embodied 
in treaty stipulations, it is considered to be clear and 
unquestionable, that, in every case of capture of a ship 
upon probable cause, every manuscript, or printed paper 
found on board of her is liable in law to the inspection 
of a prize-court. Indeed a part of the complaint of the 
British government in the case of the Trent was, that the 
vessel was not brought in for adjudication in order to 
enable the court to determine whether or not she be a 
good prize. It cannot be otherwise — for being so 
captured, the ship is presumed to be in delicto — to be pro 
hac vice, adhering to the enemy — by some form of vio- 
lation of the belligerent right of the captor government ; 
and this predicament of the ship necessarily opens to the 
tribunal all the proofs of guilt which the ship contains. 

" But all this, though conclusive, is not the most im- 
portant point involved in this inquiry. That point is 
not the immunity of a government mail-bag from inspec- 
tion by a prize-court, but it is the far higher and graver 
point of the immunity of the jurisdiction of the prize- 
court itself from executive interference. This trans- 
cendent question has been fully settled by the unanimous 
and unquestioned assent of all the departments of this 
government. By the constitution and by the law, our 
prize-courts, unlike those of England and other Euro- 
pean powers are not a portion, or an appendage, or a 
dependent of the political administration, but are a part 
of the permanent organization of the judicial power, and 
invested with its independence in the determination and 
application of the law to all the cases of which they take 
cognizance. 

*' In a whole series of treaties, beginning with the Con- 
vention with France in 1800, and continuing down to 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 109 

our latest treaties with Spanish America, we solemnly 
stipulate that the prize-courts of the contracting parties 
shall have exclusive cognizance and adjudication of all 
questions of prize, and in case of condemnation, shall 
render, and on demand certify, to claimants the grounds 
of such condemnation. 

" In our proclamation opening New Orleans and other 
ports to vessels from foreign ports, licensed by our con- 
suls under authority of the President, we insert as a con- 
dition of the license that the vessel shall carry no infor- 
mation useful to the enemy, and tlie condition of her 
clearance by our own collector for her return voyage is, 
that he shall be satisfied and certify that in entering the 
port, she has complied with the requirements of her 
license. Must not the collector then have authority to 
inspect the mail she brings ? And if our collector in 
execution of our municipal law has such authority, can 
we doubt that the prize-court has it under the broader 
belligerent right of search and the law of war ? In our 
recent treaty with Great Britain respecting the slave 
trade, negotiated by the present Secretary of State, the 
reciprocal right of search, established by that treaty con- 
tains no exemption of mails, or mail-matter from such 
search. Suppose the Peterhoff had been brought in on 
suspicion under that treaty, is there a doubt that every 
paper on board of her could, in tlie discretion of the 
court, be looked into in order to settle the question of 
her guilt? We must remember that this question of the 
mail on board of a captured ship is a question of evi- 
dence against her. If the District Attornev mav law-- 
fully threaten the court, tliat he will abandon the case 
if the court looks into such evidence by reason of its be- 
ing under an official seal, or lock, why may he not also 
in his discretion make the same threat to the court on 



110 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

the question of its inspecting any other official paper — 
the register, or clearance for example — which the ship 
contains? But by the whole law all this is settled other- 
wise. It is for the court under the law, and not for the 
Executive, to determine what papers found on board the 
prize-ship shall be inspected as evidence. 

" No muniment by a foreign government can shield 
any writing whatever found on board a captured ship 
from such inspection, when deemed necessary by the 
court in the due administration of justice. 

"In repeated cases, and without doubt or denial, the 
Supreme Court of the United States, with the full sanc- 
tion of the Executive, has sat in judgment on the ques- 
tion, not of inspecting for evidence the government mail- 
bag, but as condemning as good prize a regularly docu- 
mented vessel, or commissioned armed vessel, composing 
part of the navy of a foreign friendly power. Three of 
these cases — that of the Cassius in the 2d of Dallas, and 
that of the Exchange in the Tth of Cranch and that 
of La Jeune Eugenie, are reviewed by Mr. Attorney- 
General Wirt in an official opinion given by him in the 
year 1821. In these ^cases not only the foreign Minister 
claimed, hut the President was fully satisfied^ that the 
court could not condemn without infraction of the sov- 
ereign right of a friendly power by reason of the public 
character and commission of the ship. What happened ? 
Did the President direct the court to release the ship, 
or not proceed to adjudication ? Did the District At- 
torney threaten to abandon the case if the court should 
proceed? Quite the contrary. The President, through 
the Attor7iey- General^ came into court, and made sug- 
gestion for the consideration of the court, as a part of 
the fact in the case, that the Executive was satisfied the 
ship was a public ship — such suggestion, no way manda- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. Ill 

tory in its character, but leaving open to the unswayed 
determination of the court all the evidence and the 
whole question of prize or no prize, was the uttermost 
limit to which the Executive deemed it right to proceed. 
The very careful language of Attorney-General Wirt on 
this point merits your special attention. It may be found 
in vol. I of ' Opinions of Attorneys-General,' page 505. 

" In the late case of the Amisted, 15 Pet. Rep., page 
687, the claim of Spain made in virtue of its sovereign 
right, even when supported by the admission of our Ex- 
ecutive, was to the great satisfaction of the country 
overruled by the prize-court, and the Executive did not 
contest the validity of its decree. [See for citation, 
with approval of these cases, Wheaton's Elements, sec- 
ond edition by Lawrence, page 969, et seq.] 

"These cases are as strong as any which can possibly 
be imagined, to show the absolute independence of our 
prize-courts in the adjudication of the most transcendent 
claims of foreign sovereignties, when presented in cases 
of prize ; and the acknowledged immunity of these tri- 
bunals from any species of dictation or interference by 
the executive government. 

"In the presence of such precedents, is it not clear 
that the prize-court has full right to examine the mail- 
bag found on board of a captured vessel, which doubt- 
less contains conclusive evidence of her liability to con- 
demnation ? 

" I observe that the terms of your letter refer only to 
vessels captured for alleged violation of the blockade. 
I suppose this restriction to be accidental, and that you 
intend the inquiry to extend to mails found on board of 
vessels captured for any cause as prize of war. The case 
of the Peterhoff, as I understand it, is not one of viola- 
ted blockade, but a case of contraband. 



112 . MR. LINCOLN* AJs[D MR. SEWARD. 

" I observe also that your letter makes no reference to 
the question as to which department of the government 
is the proper organ to convey any suggestion from the 
President to the prize-court ; nor does it refer to the 
question which of the heads of department is the statu- 
tory organ of the President to convey instructions to 
the District Attorneys of the United States. It is in my 
opinion important to the interest of the public service 
and to the good order of executive business, that there 
should be no conflict or misajDprehension as to the char- 
acter of the instructions to such officers, and I therefore 
beg leave to refer you to the recent Act of Congress of 
August 2, 1861, which in the pressure of your cares may 
have escaped your attention. It places the District At- 
torneys, in the conduct of all their official business, under 
the exclusive superintendence and direction of the At- 
torney-General, as the organ of the President. 

" The court had it appears no hesitation as to its rights 
and duty to examine the mails of the Peterhoff", nor had 
the District Attorney. The court was proceeding to 
exercise its duty in conformity to law and usage when it 
was estopped by an order to the District Attorney — not 
emanating from, or conveyed through that department 
of the government to which he is by law attached — di- 
recting him to demand the surrender of the mail and 
with it of course the evidence therein contained. 

" Now if the mails or captured vessels are to be for- 
warded to their designated destination, without inspec- 
tion, and the evidence which they contain thereby denied 
to the captors, should not the chief law officer of the 
government be aware of the authority for so extraordi- 
nary a proceeding, whereby important national rights 
have been renounced and the rights of captors surren- 
dered ? It appears to me that if the suggestions of the 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 113 

31st of October, wliich effect so great, and in my j'ldg- 
ment so calamitous a revolution in the law of search, 
capture and adjudication, are to govern our national 
forces, that not only the officers of the navy, but the 
District Attorneys, the judges, and all authoi-ities of our 
own and, other countries should be promptly informed of 
this great change of policy, by an immediate and formal 
publication to that effect. 

' In conclusion, I have no doubt that, even under 
the British rule as laid down in Earl Russell's recent 
communication to Mr. Spence, the Peterhoff, was right- 
fully captured and is liable to condemnation for carry- 
ing contraband, ostensibly to Matamoras, but with con- 
tingent destination to Brownsville. I still hope that 
sufficient evidence yet remains in the reach of the court 
to condemn this vessel and cargo, but I greatly I'ear 
that such evidence, even in this case may have been ir- 
reparably lost by the unfortunate surrender of the mail. 
However this may be in the present instance, I cannot 
doubt that if this case becomes a j^recedent, in future all 
documentary evidence to condemn any such ship will be 
concealed in her mail-bag, and no papers but innocent 
ones will be found outside of it. If so, condemnation 
of the guiltiest ship will become almost an impossibility 
while her capture may saddle her captors — who will 
only have done their duty — with heavy costs and dama- 
ges, and probably the government with heavy claims 
for indemnification to the guilty party, whom its ill-or- 
dered surrender of a clear right shall have enabled to 
conceal his guilt from the judicial eye. 

" I most respectfully and earnestly invoke your se- 
rious and careful consideration of the evil consequences 
that must follow from this calamitous state of things. 
Already ]Mr. Spence, the Confederate Agent, has an- 



114: MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

nounced that the Peterhoff which had previously once 
run the blockade is but one of a line of four steam- 
ers, owned by him and destined to carry goods un- 
questionably contraband to Matamoras. The Peterhoff 
precedent, as it now stands, arms him with power to set 
at defiance all our efforts to stop such trade though its 
ultimate destination be undoubtedly to Brownsville ; 
for under this precedent, he will assuredly hereafter put 
the proof of the guilt of his vessels into the mail-bag and 
so beyond our reach. Thus, by our own act, done as I 
think in derogation of the unquestionable right of our 
prize-court, we shall furnish to our enemies an abun- 
dant supply of the munitions of war through the jDort of 
Matamoras. In this view I perceive with satisfaction 
that the prize-court has placed its surrender cf the 
mail-bag exclusively, and only upon the request of the 
government, made known through the District Attor- 
ney. After careful consideration, I think that the court 
erred in yielding to this request, so expressed. I trust, 
however, that it is not yet too late for the government to 
retrieve its mistake, at least in part, by taking action and 
making such declarations as will prevent the case of the 
Peterhoff from becoming a precedent for the future sur- 
render by the court of lawful and necessary evidence. 

" If we go on as we have begun in the Peterhoff 
case, we shall find ourselves inconsiderately relinquish- 
ing an undoubted national right, not by consent of the 
people or with the approval of the government — not by 
treaty with reciprocal advantages, but by voluntary re- 
nunciation of an indispensable right in all naval cap- 
tures in cases of contraband or breach of blockade. 

" Besides national abnegation, a cruel wrong is done 
the gallant men of our navy, who will be liable to 
censure if they do not capture, and who ' are to be 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 115 

deprived by their own government of the evidence that 
would sustain them. 

" I am Sir, with great respect, 
" Your ob'd't serv't, 

" Gideon Welles, 

" Sec'Vy of NcmyP 
" The President." 

Mr. Seward's answer to the the interrogatories I 
never saw, thongh I think the President promised me 
the perusal, or a copy, but the subject passed away, 
and I do not remember that it was ever again alluded to. 
Sometime after — about the close of the war, I met in 
the published deplomatic correspondence the following : 

*' Department of State, 
Washington, April 21, 18G3." 
" Sir :— 

" The PeterhofF will be left to the care of the courts. 
Her mail will be forwarded to its destination unopened. 
I shall, however, improve the occasion to submit some 
views upon the general question of the immunities to 
public mails found on board of vessels visited under the 
belligerent right of search. The subject is one attended 
by many embarrassments, while it is of great impor- 
tance. The President believes that it is not less desira- 
ble to Great Britain than it is to the United States and 
other maritime powers, to arrive at some regulation that 
will at once save the mails of neutrals from unnecessary 
interruption and exposure, and at the same time prevent 
them from being made use of as auxiliaries to unlawful 
designs of irresponsible persons seeking to embroil 
friendly states in the calamities of war. 

" I am Sir, your ob'd't serv't, 

" William II. Seward." 
"Charles Francis Adams, Esq." 



116 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

I need not comment on this letter, written months 
after the Secretary of State in liis letter of the 31st of 
October had assumed without consultation or advise- 
ment to overturn and dispose of a long-settled question 
which involved the efficcient and proper administration 
of another department of the government and the gov- 
ernment itself — an assumption in derogation of usage 
and a violation of law, on the ground that he deemed 
it expedient. In the workings and disposition of this 
subject the orator who delivered the '' Memorial Ad- 
dress '' has an exposition of that " solid power to direct 
affairs for the benefit of the nation through the name 
of another" which he asserts was exercised by Mr. 
Seward, a " superior in native intellectual power" to 
Mr. Lincoln. The latter anxious to extricate the 
Secretary of State and the country from its dilemma 
on becoming acquainted with the facts, the law and 
usage, thought it desirable that Great Britain and the 
other maritime powers should *' arrive at some regula- 
tion" in regard to captured mails. He was not aware 
and Mr. Seward persisted in denjdng, that the question 
belonged to the courts, yet in the characteristic letter 
to Mr. Adams he admits " the subject is one attended 
by many embarrassments while it is of great impor- 
tance." This important subject and its "many em- 
barrassments" all of which by usage and international 
and statute law belonged to the courts, he, without 
consultation with the Cabinet, without the assent of 
the Senate, without the action of Congress, undertook 
to dispose of in a flippant letter to a subordinate of 
the English legation, by giving up without condition 
or equivalent our undisputed right. AYorse than the 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 117 

original mistake, for it was doubtless a mistake of his 
autliority, he refused to retract, and when he became 
informed, persisted in error to the detriment of tlie 
naval service and the injury of the country. What 
farther views, if any, he ever presented I am not 
informed. J^or, after our frequent passages on the 
subject, did he submit to me the letter addressed by 
order of the President, to Mr. Adams. The English 
government less willing to renounce a right than our 
Secretary of State, received with complacency our 
obsequious surrender in the case of the Peterhoff, but 
entered into no arrangement for renunciation on their 
part nor am I aware that the abandonment of our 
right was farther insisted upon after the subject was 
canvassed. 

English enterprise, if not English diplomacy from 
the commencement to the close of our domestic diffi- 
culties was vigilant and unceasing in schemes to evade 
the blockade and establish intercourse with the rebels, 
of which the non-examination of the mails seemed a 
part. The western borders of Texas, where there was 
no military force to guard the frontiers, opened the 
way for illicit traffic which was hastily improved. 
The attention of the Secretary of State was repeatedly 
called to this subject with suggestion that we could 
not have a thorough blockade in the southwest under 
the existing state of things ; but that an arrangement 
might be made with Mexico in relation to the naviga- 
tion of the Eio Grande which was the boundary be- 
tween the two countries, and that being a mutual 
highway, we could not close, nor could we but by con- 
sent of Mexico, interdict or regulate trade upon that 



118 MR. LINCOLN .AND MR. SEWARD. 

river. An immense commerce sprang up with the 
neutral port of Matamoras which became for a period 
a great commercial mart, but it was notoriously illicit 
trade with the rebels through Brownsville. This 
fraudulent and evasive traffic was stimulated and en- 
couraged by the assurance which the Secretary of 
State had given to England, of immunity to the mails. 
Information of tJiis renunciation of our right of search 
was promptly communicated to the British public, by 
an announcement of the fact on the floor of Parlia- 
ment. A line of British mail-packets to Matamorag, 
of which the Peterhotf, an old blockade-runner was 
one, was speedily established in the confident belief 
that a vessel with a mail and clearance to a neutral 
port, though carrying letters and freight fraudulently 
for Brownsville and the insurgent region, would escape 
capture, for the mails which could not be examined 
would cover the evidence of guilt. My suggestions 
that a treaty or arrangement might be made with the 
Mexican rejDublic, by which we might blockade the 
E-io Grande were unheeded, lest we should give of- 
fence to Louis Napoleon who was sustaining the em- 
pire of Maximilian. The case of the Peterhoff and her 
mails demonstrated that a great diplomatic error had 
been committed. The Secretary of State had of his 
own motion, against law and without Cabinet consulta- 
tion abandoned a national and indispensable belliger- 
ent right without an equivalent, without mutual ar- 
rangement or reciprocity. England would enter into 
no arrangement that required the surrender of the 
right which the Secretary of State had inconsiderately 
and without authoritv renounced. The act was our 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 119 

own. It was declared in Parliament that '' Earl Hus- 
sell considered that this was not an arrangement be- 
tween her Majesty's government and the government 
of the United States, but simply an arrangement made 
by the government of the United States for the direc- 
tion of their own cruisers.'' 

Mr. E. Delaheld Smith, District Attorney for the 
United States, who under direction of Mr. Seward 
withdrew the mail from the court and delivered it to 
the British consul also said in his argument before the 
United States court : 

" The withdrawal from the registry of the court of 
the public mail of Great Britain and its delivery 
through us to the Consul of that country to be by him 
forwarded to its professed destination, will be cited by 
the respective counsel for the captors and the claim- 
ants. Each will insist that the mail might have pro- 
duced witnesses in favor of his clients. As it was thus 
disposed of at my instance (under Mr. Seward), I shall 
argue nothing from its absence, and shall seek to infer 
nothing from the silence of the claimants when I ap- 
plied for its release. They unquestionably in that 
silence acted in accordance with the wishes of their 
government, as I, in my application, complied lolth the 
policy of my ownr 

A few days after the renunciation of our national 
right to placate England, Senator Sumner met Lord 
Lyons at the house of Tassara, the Spanish Minister, 
and expressed to him his regret that, taking advantage 
of the peculiar condition of our affairs, he should have 
made a demand on our government which could not 
be yielded without national dishonor ; and remarked 



120 MR. LIXCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

that the subject of examining all letters and papers on 
prizes was well settled by the law of nations, and that 
questions relating to mails on captured vessels were 
judicial rather than diplomatic. Lord Lyons dis- 
avowed ever having made a demand ; said he was 
careful and guarded in all his transactions with Mr. 
Seward, and made it a point to reduce every question 
with him to writing. He authorized Mr. Sumner to 
examine his whole correspondence with the State 
Department ; said he had of course been gratified with 
the voluntary renunciation by Mr. Seward of the right 
to search the mails ; and when, contrary to the promise 
tendered by the Secretary of State, the mails were 
carried into court, he had called Mr. Seward's atten- 
tion to his own letter of the 31st of October to the 
Secretary of the ISTavy, abandoning the right ; but he 
had exacted nothing, made no demand, and merely 
asked him to do as he had promised. 

When Mr. Sumner on the following day reported 
this interview" with the British Minister, the President 
was filled with astonishment, and said, in his emphatic 
manner, " I shall have to cut this knot." 

Of what advantage to the Executive or the country 
was the greater experience of the Secretary of State 
in this instance ? He had been twelve years in the 
Senate, and by a dash of the pen, in a note of six lines, 
he, against usage — against both national and inter- 
national law — without the action of Congress — without 
consulting President or Cabinet — without the consent 
of the people or the approval of the government — 
•without a treaty with reciprocal advantages — without 
authority of any kind, assumed the power to relinquish 



MK. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 121 

and renounce an indispensable national right in naval 
captures. If the President, from friendship or 
sympathy, was influenced to shield or sustain the 
Secretary of State in his distressing embarrassment, 
it was under circumstances Avhich will be rightly 
appreciated. It is one of many cases which exhibit 
the workings of the Administration — the " positive 
qualities" and real merits and course of action of the 
President and Secretary of State — the confiding nature 
of the former and the influence exercised by the latter ; 
and from fects like these, a judgment may be formed 
how far the country and posterity are likely to " award 
honors to Mr. Lincoln that clearly belong to Mr. 
Seward." Let neither be robbed of the honors he 
earned, or of the just merits to which he is entitled. 

The Peter h off was an advance steamer of a pro- 
posed line of packets which were to convey mails and 
supplies, ostensibly to Matamoras, but with contin- 
gent destination for Texas. The whole scheme was 
deliberately planned to evade the blockade/and open 
for the rebels free communication abroad through 
British mails, via the Eio Grande ; and the Secretary 
of State flattered and seduced, I need not say intimi- 
dated by the British legation, had without authority 
by law or by treaty, abandoned a principle and given 
the parties immunity by his ill-advised letter renoun- 
cins: the national rio-ht to search the mails. After the 
mails of the Peterhotf were given up, that vessel 
or her appraised value was restored to her owners 
for the want of sufficient evidence to condemn 
her, a heavy loss to the captors and to the govern- 
ment ; but the parties in the Matamoras line became 
6 



122 MR. LINCOLN A.ND MR. SEWARD. 

involved in a legal controversy in the English courts 
after the war was over, when it was made evident that 
the vessel was actually good prize, and it is understood 
the evidence which would have insured her condemna- 
tion was in the mails that were surrendered. 



Differences existed in the Cabinet and the coun- 
try in 1861 on some of the measures and the course of 
policy which the government should pursue toward the 
secessionists. The questions presented were in some 
respects novel and without precedent, as was the insur- 
rection itself. Hostilities were precipitated within 
forty days of the inauguration, before tlie administra- 
t'on was fully established in place, or had time to de- 
velop its policy. The assault on the flag at Charles- 
ton compelled immediate action. The proclamation 
promptly issued for seventy-five thousand volunteers, 
also declared a blocka le of the Southern ports. There 
was entire unanimity in the Cabinet on all points in 
the proclamation except that of a blockade, which was 
questioned as a doubtful and irregular proceeding ; for 
the conflict, whether an insurrection or rebellion, was 
purely domestic — a civil war, and not a foreign war ; 
and it was thought the internal dissensions in our own 
territory should be confined within our own borders. 
A majority of the Cabinet, therefore, preferred an 
embargo or suspension of intercourse with that part 
of the country, to a blockade, and maintained it to be 
the true policy of the government to close the ports 
and interdict commerce with the insurgents until the 
rebellion was suppressed. It was claimed that a block- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 123 

ade was not a domestic but an international question 
— legitimate and proper as between two distinct na- 
tions, but that we could not properly blockade our own 
ports, though we might shut them up, prohibit traffic 
from abroad by law, and make its violation a criminal 
offence ; that the very fact of a blockade of the whole 
rebel territory would raise the insurgents to the level 
of belligerents — a concession to the Confederate organ- 
ization virtually admitting it to be a quasi government 
— giving that organization a position among nations 
that we would not and ct)uld not recognize or sanction, 
and which would inevitably lead to embarrassments. 
But the subject was in some of its aspects novel, and 
the Secretary of State, though sometimes rash, had not 
the bold and vigorous mind to assert and maintain a 
right principle, if fraught with doubt and difficulty, 
provided there was an easier path. The blockade, he 
thought, opened up a way. The questions of blockade 
were well settled and clearly defined, tiie authority 
and precedents explicit ; and he therefore preferred to 
adopt that course, shelter himself under those prece- 
dents, and apply international law to a strictly national 
and domestic controversy, rather than assert a measure 
and vindicate an important principle affecting nation- 
al rights. Less was said, in the confusion and proceed- 
ings which came like an avalanche at that critical mo- 
ment upon the Administration, than at a later period. 
Two members of the Cabinet, Messrs. Cameron and 
Caleb Smith said they had bestowed very slight exam- 
ination upon the subject, and as it related to foreign 
intercourse they deferred to the Secretary of State, 
who had given it special attention, and also cited au- 



124: MR. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWAED. 

thorities justifying an exclusion of commerce from 
national ports in the equitable form of blockade. Pres- 
ident Lincoln inclined to that view, and when Mr. 
Seward asserted that one great object of the blockade 
instead of a closure of the ports was to avoid complica- 
tions which would be likely, to involve us in a foreign 
war, the question was decided. The President said 
we could not afford to have two wars on our hands at 
once, and a blockade of our own ports and collection 
districts was ordered. The authoritv and the ri^ht 
of the national government to close ports within its 
jurisdiction was controverted by no one, though a 
blockade was. Mr. Seward himself, in his dispatch 
of the 8th of June 1861, to Mr. Adams, said : ''We 
claim to have a right to close the ports which have 
been seized by insurrectionists for the purpose of sup- 
pressing the attempted revolution, and no one could 
justly complain if we had done so decisively and per- 
emptorily." Bat the English Grovernment, as soon as 
information crossed the Atlantic of differences in the 
American Cabinet, made haste to force us to adhere 
to the blockade, which would be an acknowledgment 
of belligerent rights to the rebels, by indirectly ad- 
monishing us of its views and intentions in a debate 
promptly got up in Parliament for the purpose on the 
27th of June, immediately on the receipt of Mr. Sew- 
ard's dispatch. Lord John Russell in that debate an- 
nounced the interpolation of a new doctrine by the 
British Government into international law, by declar- 
ing to the feeble government of New Granada, '^ It 
is not competent for its government to close its ports 
that are de facto in possession of the insurgents." 



MK. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 125 

The debate, ostensibly on the affairs of ISTew 
Granada, was evidently and unmistakably intended as 
an admonition and menace to the United States, then 
engaged in suppressing insurrection. In a dispatch 
of the 28th of June from our Minister in London, just 
twenty days after Mr. Seward's dispatch of the 8th 
of June claiming our right to close the ports, Mr. 
Adams wrote the Secretary of State that in an inter- 
view with Lord John Eussell, " His lordship then 
said something about difficulties in ISTew Granada, and 
the intelligence that the insurgents had undertaken to 
close several of their ports. But tlie law officers here 
told him that this could not be done as against foreign 
nations, excepting by the regular form of blockade. 
He did not know what we thought about it, but he 
had observed that some such plan was likely to be 
adopted at the coming session of Congress in regard 
to the ports of those whom we considered as insur- 
gents." His lordship also on the 27th of June an- 
nounced in Parliament that "the opinion of Her 
Majesty's Government after taking legal advice is, 
that it is perfectly competent for the government of a 
country in a state of tranquillity to say which ports 
shall be open to trade and which shall be closed ; but 
in the event of insurrection or civil war in that coun- 
try, it is not competent for its government to close its 
ports that are de facto in the hands of the insurgents, 
as that would be an invasion of international law with 
regard to blockade." 

Congress when it convened in special session in 
July, a few days after this English menace, totally 
unmindful of " the opinion of Her Majesty's Govern- 



12G MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

ment after taking legal advice," but under the counsel 
and deliberate conclusion of our wisest and ablest 
legislators and statesmen, and in total disregard of 
the policy of our own Secretary of State as well as of 
Her Majesty's Government, declined to commit itself 
to the blockade, and in explicit and emphatic language 
authorized by the Act of the 13th of July, a closure of 
the ports. Mr. Seward was constrained, under these 
circumstances and under the direction of President 
Lincoln, on the 21st of July, to tell Mr. Adams that 
" Since your conversation with Lord John E-ussell, the 
Congress of the United States has by law asserted the 
right of this government to close the ports of this 
country which have been seized by the insurgents. 
The connecting by Lord John Russell of that measure 
when it was in prospect with what had taken place in 
regard to a law of New Granada, gives to the remarks 
which he made to you a significance that requires no 
especial illustration. The President fnlly agrees with 
Congress in the principle of the law which authorizes 
him to close the ports which have been seized by the 
insurgents, and he will put into execution and main- 
tain it with all the means at his command, at the 
hazard of whatever consequences, whenever it shall 
appear that the safety of the nation requires it." 

It is not expedient, perhaps, to follow up in its 
details a subject not particularly creditable to our 
diplomacy and to the maintenance of our national 
rights, further than to allude briefly to the historic 
facts. The brave words of the Secretary of State, 
uttered on the 21st of July, were not enforced. Mr. 
Adams, in a dispatch of the 16th of August, says he 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 127 

took occasion to intimate to Lord John Kussell that 
" he must not infer from my not having entered into 
discussion of the merits of the question, that I gave 
any assent to the position taken by him about the 
right of a government to close its own ports, when 
held by forcible possession of persons resisting its 
authority. On the contrary, I desired to reserve for 
my government the treatment of it as an open ques- 
tion whenever it should take any practical shape. In 
the mean time I had every reason to believe that it 
was the design of the President to persevere in the 
blockade," etc. His lordship declared in Parliament, 
however, that he considered the law of Congress " as 
merely giving a discretionary power. But if carried 
into practice, he construed it as putting an end to the 
blockade." Under these threats our government 
tamely submitted. The law of Congress was not 
carried into effect, our diplomacy was meek and 3'ield- 
ing, and under British menace the blockade of our 
own ports, b}^ our own ships, was continued. 

On the 2d of September the Secretary of State, 
with some trepidation, informed the Minister that " no 
change of policy in regard to the blockade has been 
adopted'' — a timid intimation of acquiescence in an 
insult and injury, to appease British arrogance ; her 
ministry believing and asserting that an effective 
blockade of our extensive coast was impossible, but 
that in no other waj^ than by blockade could com- 
merce be interdicted. Our government did not order 
the ports to be closed but under the hint given by the 
English dictum to IS'ew Granada, it abstained from ex- 
ercising the national authority within that part of the 



128 MR. LINCOLN AND MB. SEWAED. 

territory of the United States that was in insurrec- 
tion, and was passive and submissive. In all this time, 
while treating the Confederates as belligerents, and 
their organization as a quasi government, the Secre- 
tary of State, with strange inconsistency, denounced 
their cruisers as pirates. 

Not until the 11th of April, 1865, after Eichmond 
had fallen, and only three days before the assassination 
of President Lincoln, was a proclamation issued, in 
pursuance of the Act of Congress of the 13th of July, 
1861, to close the ports of the Southern States. Until 
the war had virtually ceased, the law of Congress was 
not enforced. The British mandate to New Granada 
was submissively acquiesced in and obsequiously ob- 
served by the United States. Our ports were not 
closed, but blockaded, which eventuated, as was in- 
tended, in establishing throughout the war the English 
ports of Nassau, Bermuda, and Halifax as entrepots 
for illicit traffic with the rebels and resorts for rebel 
cruisers, to harass and destroy our commerce. It 
opened the English ports throughout the world to the 
Alabama, and rovers of her class, which swept our 
merchant ships from the ocean for the benefit of 
England. 

On the subject of a blockade of our own ports by 
our own vessels, Mr. Seward had undoubtedly, for 
good or for evil, influence with the President, which 
outweighed a majority of the Cabinet and Congress. 
The subject was new to him when his decision was 
given, and the blockade being made effective by the 
navy, he did not care to re-open a disturbing question, 
though his views became modified, and ultimately tlie 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 129 

ports were closed, notwithstanding the English dictum 
to New Granada. 

The management of our foreign affairs, and the 
maintenance of our rights against tiie pretensions and 
menaces of the arrogant ministry of England, tluis 
commenced, was continued, until intelligent English- 
men themselves were surprised if not disgusted with 
our subserviency. After the shameful renunciation 
of our right to send into the courts, mails from captur- 
ed vessels — a right recognized and established by the 
usage of nations, and made a duty by our own stat- 
utes — an eminent English publicist, Sir Yernon Har- 
court amazed at our submissive and pusillanimous di- 
plomacy, warned his government against proceeding 
too far in its demands, " for," said he ; '' what we have 
most to fear is not that Americans will yield too little 
hut that we shall accept too irmchP A humiliating 
commentary on our diplomacy, by an English writer 
of no mean ability. 



Tpie efforts of the secessionists to bring about a 
dissolution of the Union on the pretext that slavery in 
the states was in danger, in consequence of the suc- 
cess of the Republicans in 1860, and that new guarantees 
were required to protect the institution, had the effect 
of increasing the anti-slavery feeling in the free states. 
Until the attempts to secede from the Union and throw 
the country into dissevered sections, the fundamental 
law was strictly observed and adhered to throughout the 
whole Xorth, and the right of each state to regulate its 
own affairs, its industrial pursuits, its domestic iustitu- 
6* 



130 MR. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWAED. 

tions, the condition of its people in the matter of 
servitude, of debtor and creditor, including imprison- 
ment for debt, and punishment for criminal otfences 
was respected. The serious agitation of the slavery 
question had its origin in fact with the nulli tiers. After 
their defeat, as a party on the tariff issue and the futile 
claim of intolerable burdens by reason of high duties 
on imposts, which they had striven to make a political 
party test, the South Carolina politicians changed their 
tactics and professed to be greatly alarmed by the 
petitions of the Quakers and a few fanatics as extreme 
as the nullifiers themselves, and vastly inferior in num- 
bers and talents, who — regardless of constitutional ob- 
ligations and limitations, asked for the abolition of 
slavery by the general government. 

So pronounced and universal was the sentiment of 
the [N^orth against this feeble sect, that politicians and 
public men denounced their doctrines and were careful 
to be in no way committed to, or connected with them. 
Abolition was as unpopular with both the great parties 
of the North as the South, but it pleased the ]N"ullifiers 
to make indiscriminate war upon the free states and to 
classify the whole I^orth as abolitionists inimical to the 
South and southern institutions. Disclaimers and disa- 
vowals were of no avail with the men who had a party 
purpose to accomplish by these deliberate misrepresen- 
tations. On the abstract question of slavery there was 
but one sentiment throughout the free states ; but this 
sentiment, for it was a sentiment — could not overcome 
the deep and sacred regard for constitutional obligations. 
On no political subject was there more unity, than that 
the rights of the states should be respected and observed 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 131 

on the question of slavery. But the Kullifiers started 
to be aggressive, and with a determination to be the 
ascendant party in the government or to subvert it. 
The means resorted to for uniting the South irrespec- 
tive of parties on this local question were, by creating 
alarm in the slave states — stating the free states were 
aggressive — warning the slave ownej-s that their prop- 
erty was in jeopardy — demanding new guarantees for 
its security — promoting sectional animosity and some 
of them requiring a dual executive. 

Mr. Seward who, according to Mr. Adams, had in 
1824 made " a deliberate claim of a nVht in the federal 
government to emancipate slaves by legislation," 
abandoned in the winter of 1861, this original position 
and proposed an amendment to the constitution guar- 
anteeing the perpetuation of slavery so far as the gen- 
eral government was concerned by prohibiting Congress 
through all time and under all circumstances from ex- 
ercising " any power to abolish or interfere in any state 
with the domestic institutions thereof, includinjr that 
of persons lield to service or labor by the \sl\vs of said 
state.'' Politicians of the Jefferson school, less prac- 
tical, in the judgment of Mr. Adams, than Mr. Seward 
(for Jefferson never admitted *^ a right in the federal 
government to emancipate slaves,''), were averse to this 
extraordinary proposition which was presented as a 
peace-offering and a compromise by one who, accord- 
ing to the '' Memorial Address" ought to have been 
made President instead of Mr. Lincoln. 

When at length, after more than twenty years of 
declamation, agitation, persistent aggression and delib- 
erate misrepresentation, the country became involved 



132 MR. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWARD. 

in civil war on the subject of slavery, it is not surpris- 
ing that many who had until this time adhered to and 
maintained the constitutional safeguards, deprecated 
the cause of dissension and disunion and wished it 
removed. The rebellion rapidly increased the anti- 
slavery sentiment everywhere, and politicians shaped 
their course accordingly. On the wave of this anti- 
slavery excitement the Secretary of State and the 
British Minister in the spring of 1862 negotiated a 
treaty for the suppression of the African slave-trade, 
a revival of which had been threatened by the seces- 
sionists in the cotton-growing states. If other and 
ulterior purposes were designed, it was an adroit 
movement on tlie part of the English diplomat who 
availed himself of the popular feeling which in free 
governments influences public men. The Secretary 
of State very naturally fell in with a movement which 
was in harmony with public sentiment and the current 
of affairs. The treaty was quietly negotiated. I 
knew nothing of it until after its ratification, for it 
was not submitted for Cabinet consultation in any 
stage of its progress. When promulgated in the 
second year of the war, it did not create the sensation 
which might have been expected. Other and more 
exciting matters absorbed the public mind. There 
began to be a conviction that not only the slave-traffic 
but slavery itself was doomed. I do not remember 
to have seen or read the treaty until after it had been 
ratified and duly exchanged by both governments. A 
certified copy was sent me by the Secretary of State 
about the first of September, and also a copy of a 
singular arrangement, contract, or treaty negotiated or 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 



133 



entered into by the Secretary of the Interior under 
advisement of the Secretary of State and the Charge 
d'aifaire's of Denmark rehitive to the colonization in 
the West Indies of negroes captured under the treaty. 
On the 17th of September I received the following 
letter from the Secretary of State with a list of some 
twenty or thirty naval vessels in Her Majesty's service, 
and a copy of the instructions of the British govern- 
ment to the respective commanders. 

"Department of State, 

17 Sept. 1862." 

"Sir:— . . 

" I have the honor to invite your attention to the 
enclosed copy of a communication of the 13th inst. from 
the British Charge d'affaires here, embracing the 
.instructions which it is intended to furnish to the com- 
manders of Her Brittannic Majesty's cruisers who may 
be employed in carrying out the provisions of the recent 
slave-trade treaty between the United States and Great 
Britain as well as lists of Her Majesty's several ships 
employed on the African, North American and West 
India stations, whose commanders will be authorized to 
act under the treaty and asking for a similar list of 
United States cruisers. 

" I am sir, your ob'd't serv't, 

" Wm. H. Seward." 

"HoN". Gideon Welles, 

" SecH'y of the JSTavyy 

This communication and the accompanying pa- 
pers led to a critical examination of the treaty, which 
tained some extraordinary provisions that,, if carried 



con 



134 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

into effect, were likely to impair the efficiency of our 
own navy during the war. Whilst examining and 
considering the treaty, then wholly new to me, and 
concerning which I had not been consulted, although 
the navy was to be employed in carrying out its pro- 
visions ; and in its operation our cruisers would be se- 
riously affected by the instrument, I received a second 
or duplicate of the foregoing letter, hastening early 
compliance, and asking for a list of United States ves- 
sels with my instructions to officers commanding such 
as were authorized by the treaty to capture slaves. I 
replied on the 29th, informing Mr. Seward the treaty 
was wholly incompatible with the existing condition 
of affairs — that it would be impossible during the war 
to detail any vessel with specific instructions to act 
under the treaty, for it would, for belligerent purposes, 
destroy the efficiency of any vessel so instructed — that 
it would be virtually locking up a portion of the navy 
tying the hands of the government at a time when 
every vessel was wanted for blockade and independent 
cruising, and it appeared to me the full force and scope 
of the treaty could not have been well considered when 
negotiated. My letter was probably more pungent 
than was necessary or expedient. It aroused Mr. Sew- 
ard's attention to certain conditions and stipulations, 
the operation of which had not attracted his attention 
while framing and assenting to the instrument. He 
evidently felt that he had been precipitate, and that 
there were unfortunate or unguarded stipulations in 
his arrangement with which we could not comply. 
He therefore wrote me an unofficial note on the 30th 
of September, enclosing the form of letter which he 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 



135 



wished me to substitute for mine of the preceding 
day. His reason for this, as stated by himself was that 
he might wish to give Lord Lyons a copy of my objec- 
tions which he saw were insuperable. But this pro- 
posed substitute prepared by him was gentle and too 
pointless in its expressions, and on the whole, of such 
a tenor that I was not inclined to adopt and make it 
my own, though desirous to oblige him in the emer- 
gency. I however modified my communication of 
the 29th and sent to him the following ; 

" Navy Department, 

"Oct 9, 1862. 

"Sir:— 

" I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your 
communications of the lYth and 26th ulto., enclosing a 
copy of a letter from the British Charge d'affaires, com- 
municating the instructions which it is intended to fur- 
nish the commanders of Her Brittanic Majesty's crui- 
sers who may be employed in carrying out the provisions 
of the recent slave-trade treaty between the United 
States and Great Britain, as well as lists of Her Majes- 
ty's several ships employed in the African, North Amer- 
ican and West India stations, whose commanders will be 
authorized to act under the treaty, and asking for a sim- 
ilar list of United States cruisers. 

" I have the honor to inform you that all our crui- 
sers are at present exercising the belligerent right of 
search, and it would be highly detrimental to the ser- 
vice and unjust to the country to detach any of them at 
the present moment from the duties on whieh they are 
eno-aged and restrict their operations by instructions un- 
der the treaty for the present, or during the existence 



136 MR. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWARD. 

of hostilities, under the unquestioned belligerent right 
of search, each and all of our national vessels will exer- 
cise the rights which appertain to them as belligerents 
— will visit and search suspected vessels not only within 
the latitude prescribed by the treaty, but elsewhere ; 
and in the exercise of this belligerent right, they will 
not hesitate to seize slavers or other piratical craft that 
are abusing our flag. 

" To give our cruisers, now performing such general 
duties, instructions under' the treaty, would be to limit 
their operations to a specific object, while the exigencies 
of the country require them to perform other necessary, 
legal and legitimate duties. So far as it is practicable 
on our part to use the belligerent right of search inci- 
dentally, in aid of the purposes of the treaty, we shall 
so use it. 

** The important privilege of visit and search, and in 
some cases of detention and capture, is conceded by each 
of the two governments in this treaty, and offence can- 
not be taken at our waiving for a season the exercise of 
the privilege conceded. This waiver will not prevent 
British cruisers from searching and seizing suspected 
vessels claiming to be American, while those claiming 
to be English will also be searched by them. Besides 
this, our cruisers searching all vessels under the belli- 
gerent right, will of course capture all slavers which use 
or abuse the American Flag or adopt that of the rebels. 

" I do not propose during the existence of hostilities 
to impair the efficiency or usefulness of our cruisers as 
war vessels by giving their commanders instructions un- 
der the treaty, for the reason that any naval officer act- 
ing under such instructions would be restrained from the 
general belligerent right of search — the instrument it- 
self compels him to declare, on boarding a vessel, that 



Mil. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 1?'7 

Hhe only object of the search/\s to ascertain Avlictlier 
{he vessel is employed in the African slave-trade, or is 
fitted up for that trade ' — whereas, instead of confin- 
ing our officers to that only object in this time of war, 
we have not a cruiser afloat whose commander is not 
under imperative orders to search all merchant vessels 
for contraband of war. We can not consent to abandon 
the belligerent right of search and seizure in the West 
Indies, where neutral obligations are disregarded and neu- 
tral flags are prostituted to aid the insurgents — conse- 
quently, 1 must for the present omit to issue any instruc- 
tions under the treaty which permits no commander 
having instructions under the treaty to search a vessel in 
certain localities for miy other purpose than that of 
detcctins; slaves. 

" Whenever the condition of afiairs will permit us to set 
apart cruisers for the special service required, it will give 
me pleasure to furnish a list of them as requested and to 
perform the duties which devolve upon the department 
for a strict execution of the treaty. 

" I am, respectfully, 
" Your Obed't Serv't, 
"Gideon Welles, 
"/Sec7'y of the JSFavy:' 

" Hon. W. H. Seward, 
" Secretary of State.^^ 

I on the same day addressed the subjoined com- 
mnnication, adverting to the unfurtunate complications 
and difficulties in which we were likely to become in- 
volved by this confused mixture of executive, legisla- 
tive and diplomatic proceedings, under the treaty, un- 
der the law of Congress which he had procured to be 



138 MK. LESrCOLN AND ME. SEWAED. 

enacted, and under tlie Danish treaty which had never 
been ratified. 

" Navy Department, 

Oct. 9. 1862. 
" Sm :— 

" Since the receipt of your unofficial note of the 30th 
ultimo, with the proposed form of a draft as a substitute 
for my letter of the 29th ultimo, I have given the subject 
much thought and examination. That a copy of my let- 
ter would have to be communicated to the British Gov- 
ernment had not occurred to me. That fact, and some 
defects of full explanation in my letter of the 29th ultimo 
to you, render it proper that I should revise and modify 
my communication. 

" I have therefore prepared the enclosed with some 
care, as better adapted, I think, to the case than the 
form you were so kind as to send me. This whole sub- 
ject has become strangely complicated ; there is, in the 
first place, the conceded privilege of reciprocal search by 
the treaty, and there is the unquestioned belligerent 
right of search which cannot be surrendered. Yet the 
two are in conflict. Then we come in contact with that 
strange anomaly, a treaty with Demmark, which has 
never been ratified by the Senate — concluded and signed 
by the Danish Charge d'affaires on behalf of the gov- 
ernment of Demmark, and by the Secretary of the Interior 
on behalf of the government of the United States — not 
negotiated in conformity with the requirements of the 
Constitution, nor through the department that is charged 
with the special duty of making treaties, but by an 
entirely different department and under an Act of Con- 
gress which assumes to authorize the treaty or agreement 
rcfrardless of the Constitution. 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 139 

*' The treaty with Great Britain provides that instruc- 
tions shall be given to our cruisers. The form of letter 
which you send me promises that orders will be given 
for captured slavers to be sent into port for adjudication 
according to the terms of the treaty, and this without 
instructions. 

*' The mixed commission under the treaty cannot 
adjudicate the questions, if instructions are not given, 
and are precluded from action. 

" In addition to this, by the Danish treaty or agree- 
ment, it is stipulated to the effect that all negroes, mulat- 
toes, or persons of color on board of vessels seized in the 
prosecution of the slave-trade shall be sent to West JEnd, 
in the Island of St^ Croix, and our commanders, exercis- 
ing the belligerent right of search, are to be instructed 
accordingly. 

" It is true that this strange, unconfirmed and singular 
instrument makes no provision for adjudication and con- 
demnation of any captured slaver. Ordering the negroes 
to be sent to St. Croix, therefore, may not be inconsist- 
ent with a condemnation under the treaty, but how can 
the slaves and slaver be brought before the mixed com 
mission established by the treaty, when they are not 
captured by officers instructed under that instrument — 
such instructions being made a condition-precedent under 
that instrument, of all proceedings by the mixed com- 
mission ? 

" I find myself, I confess, embarrassed in several 
respects by the stipulations and complications involved 
- in this subject of captured slavers, and see no other 
course to pursue, than to wholly abstain from any a(;tion 
whatever under the treaty, so long as the war con- 
tinues. 

" The privilege of reciprocal search for slavers being 



140 MR. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWAKD. 

conceded by the treaty, I do not see that the English 
government can complain if we do not avail ourselves 
of it, but permit them to enjoy it. 

"Incidentally our own cruisers will, with greater 
energy and effect, aid in enforcing the object of the 
treaty under the more comprehensive belligerent right 
of search. 

"It appears to me that this whole subject of slaves 
and slavers has become so involved and complicated by 
treaties and agreements and statutory enactments — the 
reciprocal right of search, and belligerent right of 
search — the process of adjudication under the mixed 
commission, under the stipulations to adjudicate by the 
British treaty, and the arrangements to send the negroes 
to St. Croix under the Danish agreements, that some 
measures should be adopted to disembarrass the ques- 
tion. 

" I am, respectfully, 
« Your Obed't Serv't, 
" Gideon Welles, 
" Sec'ey, of the JSTavy.^^ 
" Hon. Wm. H. Seward, 
" SecHY of State:' 

"Whether a copy of my letter was ever sent to 
Lord Lyons is problematical, but he was made aware 
that the Secretary of the Navy was disinclined and 
believed it impracticable to carry out the stipulations 
of the treaty during the existence of hostilities. It 
was unquestionably an unpleasant topic to one of the 
temperament and mind of the Secretary of State to 
dwell upon, nor was it pleasant for him to admit that 
in a treaty on which he prided himself, he had com- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 141 

mitted an error or been overreached. I supposed at 
the time that the exceptional provision was an inad- 
vertence on the part of both the negotiators, and have 
no doubt it was as regards the Secretary of State, but 
subsequent developments in regard to the treatment 
of mails captured and the siraidtaneous establishment 
of a line of British mail-packets to the Rio Grande, 
which was within the prescribed latitudes, where naval 
vessels under treaty instructions could only search for 
slaves, rendered it doubtful whether the English 
legation had not shrewdly availed itself of the zeal of 
the Secretary of State against slave traffic to adopt a 
measure which would promote English commercial 
enterprise by securing immunity to their vessels and 
thus opening a way for intercourse with the blockaded 
rebels. 

Mr. Seward did not submit to me his letter to the 
Enojlish leo^ation statins^ the obstacles which inter- 
vened to prevent the consumrnation of the treaty or 
action under it in the existing state of things, nor do 
I think the President was fully apprised of it. I only 
know that the treaty was necessarily suspended. The 
tenor of his communication to Lord Lyons, I learned 
some eighteen months later from the following letter, 
written several weeks after my communication of the 
9th of October, stating the objections to issue instruc- 
tions which would circumscribe and impair the rights 
and efficiency of our cruisers. 

"Washington, November 27, 1862. 
"Sir:— 

" Mr. Stuart did not fail to communicate to lier Ma- 
jesty's government the note which you did him the 



112 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

honor to address to him on the 14th of last month, and 
in which you stated certain reasons which induced the 
government of the United States to decline, for the 
moment to issue to commanders of United States vessels 
the instructions contemplated by the treaty of the 7th 
of April last for their guidance in carrying out the 
stipulations of that treaty for the suppression of the 
slave trade. The principal reason for omitting to issue 
the instructions appears to be an apprehension that 
they would restrict the more extended right of search, 
which the commanders of United States vessels now 
exercise as belligerents. 

"And it seems to be believed that the object of the 
treaty may be in great measure attained by the exercise 
of this belligerent right of search in lieu of the special 
right of search provided for by the treaty. I am how- 
ever instructed by Her Majesty's principal Secretary of 
State for Foreign Affairs to take an opportunity of 
representing to you, that although United States cruisers 
may search by virtue of their belligerent rights, yet 
they cannot by virtue of these rights, detain or send in 
for adjudication any neutral vessel not breaking block- 
ade ; in short, that they cannot give efiect to the stipu- 
lations of the treaty unless they have such warrants and 
instructions as are prescribed by it. 

" I have the honor to be, with the highest respect, 
sir, your most obedient humble servant, 

" Lyons." 
" Hon. William H. Seavakd, 
" Secretary of State" 

In this letter Her Majesty's principal Secretary of 
State did not controvert or modify the point presented, 
but denied that any neutral vessel, not breaking the 



MR. LINCOLN AND STO. SEWARD. 143 

blockade, could bo detained or sent in for adjudication 
by the naval commander under the belligerent right — 
in other words, no slaver captured by our war-vessels 
without specific instructions, could be adjudicated by 
the courts established by the treaty, and if they had 
specific instructions, they could not capture blockade- 
runners or anything else. This ultimatum failed to 
influence our government, and from the necessity of 
the case, action under the treaty remained suspended. 
Mr. Seward was, properly perhaps, opposed to any 
direct ofiicial communication between the representa- 
tives of foreign governments and the head of any 
department except through the Secretary of State. 
In tliis condition of affairs and while matters were in 
abeyance, Lord Lyons, a cool, adroit and sagacious 
diplomatist, but able and far-seeing, and I think, 
friendly to our government when it did not clash with 
British interests, felt it important that he should 
rightly understand the case and the difficulties to be 
overcome. As he could not, under the rule or practice, 
communicate with the Secretary of the Navy directly, 
he, on the 1-ith of December invited the Assistant 
Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Fox, to dine with him. 
Mr. Fox informed me of the invitation and that he 
had an intimation that Lord Lyons was anxious to 
know the difficulties in the way of carrying the treat}'' 
into effect. I authorized him to say frankly to Lord 
Lyons or any one else, that in declining to give special 
instiiictions which would tie up the hands of our naval 
commanders, my only object was not to impair their 
efticieney or circumscribe their undoubted belligerent 
right by specific instructions, that were inconsistent 



14:4: MR. LINCOLN AND JLR. SEWAKD. 

with tlie broader general belligerent right. Mr. Fox 
so informed the Minister, and in due time the treaty 
requirements were so far relaxed as to authorize a 
special warrant to our naval officers, to the effect that 
the rights and privileges under the treaty would not 
in any way derogate from or conflict with belligerent 
rights — that the power conferred by the treaty was 
added to belligerent rights, not substituted for them, 
and that the mixed courts of justice established by the 
treaty would exercise their functions in cases of 
captures under the belligerent right as well as the 
special right, which might be sent to them for adjudi- 
cation. But, in point of fact, I believe not a single 
capture was made, the African slave-trade had ceased, 
and the cumbrous and expensive machinery of mixed 
courts at the Cape of Good Hope, Sierra Leone and 
I^ew York were never put in operation. The offi- 
cers of these tribunals never had anything to do 
but draw their salaries. After the war was over, the 
treaty, the Danish arrangement and all the accom- 
paniments went out of existence. No great eclat 
attached to the negotiators of this slave-trade treaty in 
the United States, nor did Great Britain derive any 
commercial benefit from the attempt to limit the right 
of search below the latitude of 32° ; but failing in this, 
of which the Eno^lish legation was notified on the 14tli 
of October, they succeeded on the 31st of that month 
in securing from the Secretary of State, without law, 
assurance of immunity to the mails. Lines of packets 
to Matamoras were immediately established, which 
opened intercourse to the rebel states through Texas 
and the blockade was thereby evad.ed. 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SKWARD. 115 

That Mr. Seward himself came into the State De- 
partment with no acquaintance with the forms of bu- 
siness other than that obtained incidentally tlirough 
his services in the Senate, is undoubtedly correct and 
is well exemplified in the whole arrangement attend- 
ing this slave-trade treaty and its incidents, a treaty 
wherein the negotiator, represented as "a superior in 
native intellectual power" to the President and who 
exercised the more solid power to direct affairs '' through 
the President's name," a treaty negotiated in the midst 
of war but which by its provisions would cripple the 
war power of the government, a treaty negotiated by 
the Secretarv of State without consul tin o^ his colleafrucs 
in the administration, a treaty fortified or attempted 
to be fortified by an anomalous quasi-treaty entered 
into by another and a domestic department with the 
representative of a foreign government, which quasi- 
treaty or arrangement was never ratified by the Sen- 
ate, as the constitution requires, but which anomaly 
and the law under which it was justified were the off- 
spring of the negotiator of the slave-trade treaty and 
a part of that arrangement. This strange complica- 
tion, the treaty, the quasi-treaty and the law, with 
the legal tribunals and the extensive and attending 
paraphernalia resulted in nothing but a large expen- 
diture from the national treasury. 



The subject of enlisting 2:)rivate enterprise in aid 
of the government upon the ocean as well as the land, 
early engaged attention. Yague and wonderfully ex- 
aggerated rumors that our commerce nnd shipping in- 
7 



146 MR. LINCOLN AND MK. SEWAKD. 

terests were endangered from swarms of privateers that 
were, or soon would be abroad, alarmed the mercantile 
communities, and stirred up the fishermen and mari- 
ners on our coast who were anxious that there should 
be counteracting movements against these threatened 
depredators. Schemes for a volunteer navy, proposi- 
tions for a militia of the seas, tenders of yacht-squad- 
rons and plans for naval brigades were pressed upon 
the government by men of position and character as 
well as by adventurous spirits. It was remembered 
that in the war of 1812 important service was render- 
ed by the privateers. AYithout considering the differ- 
ence between a foreign war with the wealthiest com- 
mercial nation and a civil conflict with insurgents who 
had neither commerce to be injured, nor booty to re- 
ward private enterprise, it was urged that the govern- 
ment might be benefitted now as then by reprisals. 

The Secretary of State falling in with the current 
popular feeling favored these crude schemes ; while the 
Secretary of the ]N^avy who had more especially in 
charge, the police of the seas, questioned whether let- 
ters-of-marque could be made effective in this conflict 
with the rebels, and was apprehensive they might 
jeopard })eaceful relations with other powers. At the 
commencement of difficulties the rebel government au- 
thorized the licensing of privateers which produced a 
2:reat sensation and ao^^ravated the existino^ hostile 
feelino^. In the universal desire to strike the most 
effective blows against the rebels, the demand for 
using every available means became almost irresisti- 
ble. Indications of a willingness by foreign govern- 
ments, particularly by Great Britain, to give encour- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 147 

agement to the rebels by their treatment of questions 
of international maritime law had probably an influ- 
ence on the Secretary of State and more deeply enlist- 
ed his sympathies with those who were zealous foi 
carrying on upon the high seas, private as well as pub- 
lic war against the insurgents. No encouragement was 
given by the administration, for privateers, but the 
pressure from without, naturally led to occasional dis- 
cussions in the Cabinet, which developed the different 
views entertained by the heads of the two departments 
most interested. But no decisive steps were taken, 
and this was in itself the naval policy. At the extra 
session of Congress in July, the subject was entertain- 
ed by the members and among the acts passed confer- 
ring authority on the Executive, was one empowering 
the President to " authorize the commanders of armed 
vessels sailing under the authority of any letters-of- 
marque and reprisal granted by Congress — to subdue, 
seize, take, and if on the high seas to send into port." 
But Congress omitted to authorize the issuing of 
letters-of-mar([ue and prescribe conditions for the gov- 
ernment of privateers ; the enactment however served 
to relieve the administration in a measure from many 
of the schemes that had been urged. Shortly after 
Congress adjourned several highly respectable mer- 
chants of Boston engaged in the China trade, apprehen- 
sive that " rebel cruisers might get into those seas" 
addressed a communication to the Secretary of the 
!N^avy suggesting the " expediency of letters-of-marque 
or other commission," under the provision of the re- 
cent enactment. Application was also made to the 
Secretary of State by some of the same parties for let- 



148 MR. LINCOLN AND MK. SEWARD. 

ters-of-marque to the steamer Pembroke which was 
about sailing from Boston to China. Mr. Seward in 
view of the differences between the State and Navy 
Departments instead of answering this letter direct, 
referred it with an inquiry to me. Mj reply to him 
which the President approved, and which I here in- 
sert, corresponded with my answer to the merchants, 
and Mr. Seward disposed of the application to him- 
self, by sending out and publishing my letter to him. 
This relieved him of responsibility. 

*'Navy Department, Oct. 1. 1861. 
" Sir :— 

" In relation to the communication of R. B. Forbes, 
Esq., a copy of which was sent by you to this Depart- 
ment on the 16th ultimo, inquiring whether letters-of- 
marque cannot be furnished for the propeller Pembroke, 
which is about to be despatched to China, I have the 
honor to state that it appears to me there are objections 
to, and no authority for, granting letters-of-marque in 
the present contest. I am not aware that Congress, 
which has exclusive power of granting letters-of-marque 
and reprisal, has authorized such letters to be issued 
against the insurgents; and were there such authoriza- 
tion, I am not prepared to advise its exercise, because 
it would, in my view, be a recognition of the assumption 
of the insurgents, that they are a distinct and indepen- 
dent nationality. 

"Under the Act of August 5, 1861, 'Supplementary 
to an Act entitled An Act to protect the commerce of 
the United States and to punish the crime of piracy,' 
the President is authorized to instruct the commanders 
of * armed vessels saiUng under the authority of any 
letters-of-marque and reprisal granted by the Congress 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 149 

of the United States, or the conimiinders of any otlier 

suitable vessels, to subdue, seize, take, and, if on the 

high seas to send into any port of the United States any 

vessel or boat built, purchased, fitted out, or held,' etc. 

This allusion to letters-of-marque does not authorize 

such letters to be issued, nor do I find any other act 

containing such authorization. But the same act, in the 

second section, as above quoted, gives the President 

power to authorize the * commanders of any suitable 

vessels to subdue, seize,' etc. Under this clause, letters 

permissive, under proper restrictions and guards against 

abuse, might be granted to the propeller Pembroke, so 

as to meet the views expressed by Mr. Forbes. This 

would seem to be lawful, and perhaps not liable to the 

objection of granting letters-of-marque against our own 

citizens, and that too, without law or authority from the 

only constituted power that can grant it. 

" I have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of a 
letter from Messrs. J. M. Forbes & Co. and others, ad- 
dressed to this Department, on the same subject. 
*' I am very respectfully, 

" Your obedient servant, 

"Gideon Welles." 
« Wm. H. Seward. 

" Secretary of State.'^'* 

The letter had the effect apparently of satisfying 
for a time, at least, those who had taken the deepest 
interest in the subject. But the ravages of the Sumter, 
which vessel was hailed with friendly welcome and 
supplied in British ports, with the subsequent depreda- 
tions of the Alabama and Florida — English built, and 
manned chiefly by Englishmen, aroused the indigna- 
tion of the whole country. This indignation was 



150 ME. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWAED. 

increased and aggravated by the conduct of tlie British 
government in exchiding all United States cruisers 
from the English ports in China, though the seas of 
that empire were infested by pirates, and the whole 
commercial world was interested in their suppression. 
While our national ships in English ports received 
only grudging hospitality it was notorious that thfe 
semi-piratical vessels with no recognized nationality, 
though substantially English vessels sailing under the 
rebel ilag were capturing, plundering and wantonly 
destroying our commerce, and that the injury to us 
was to the benefit of England. Under these wrongs 
and outrages our w^hole commercial marine became 
greatly excited, and could the country have been 
united, a war with England, more calamitous than any 
she had ever known, would have made havoc with her 
commerce. But our condition was such that forbear- 
ance became a duty, and the government .while 
engaged in prosecuting a war w^th the rebels was 
also subjected to a severe trial, in restraining the 
popular demand for reprisals which would likely have 
begotten a war with Great Britain ; — for though the 
crown was not unfriendly to the Union it was known 
that English capital was largely engaged in illicit 
traffic with the insurgents and in running and evading 
the blockade. At the same time the unnatural and 
unfriendly conduct of her ministry, who put forth no 
arm to prevent, but craftily connived at schemes 
against the Union was felt, and will be remembered 
against the Administration of Palmerston and Kussell. 
It is some gratification to remember no>v when those 
dark days are over, that in addition to the award of 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 151 

fifteen millions for the criminal wrong we sutfered 
from England, onr navy, witliont assistance from 
privateers, captured more than thirty millions of 
property engaged in illicit traffic and running the 
blockade, no inconsiderable portion of which was 
English capital. While the public mind was inflamed 
by the wrongs inflicted, complaints were made of the 
want of efficiency on the part of the navy and jS^avy 
Department. Privateers, letters-of-marque were called 
for, regardless of the necessities of the case and 
of the consequences of committing to greedy and 
reckless adventurers the highest and most delicate 
responsibilities of government, an abuse of which 
would endanger our peace with other nations. To 
meet and dispose of these demands required decision 
and effort. The Secretary of State instead of repress- 
ing, quietly favored the privateer policy which had its 
advocates in certain persons and circles in IS^ew York. 
Fortunately the President, cautions but firm, main- 
tained aprudentand wise reserve, and committed him- 
self to no project that was likely to endanger the 
national weliare. There were also judicious and 
discreet minds in Congress that deprecated the policy 
of sending out letters-of-marque in this war with 
rebels ; but the subject was much agitated, and in July 
1862, Mr. Seward wrote to Mr. Adams, that he might 
inform Earl Russell " Since the Oreto and other gun- 
boats are being received by the insurgents from Europe 
to renew demonstrations on our national commerce, 
Congress is about to authorize the issue of letters-of- 
marque and reprisal, and that if we find it necessary 
to suppress this piracy we shall bring privateers into 



152 ME. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWAKD. 

service for that purpose and of course for that purpose 
only." 

This was a qualified and harmless admonition 
which was duly appreciated by Earl Russell, particu- 
larly when he learned a few days after, that Congress 
had adjourned without taking action on the subject. 
In the meantime the depredations of the Alabama and 
Florida increased the irritation against not only the 
rebels but mercenary England. 

On the 29th of September, Mr. Seward warned me 
that there were extensive combinations to break the 
blockade and to confirm his admonition, brought me a 
dispatch and documents from Mr. Dudley, our efiicient 
consul at Liverpool. The dispatches were » notification 
that eight or ten steamers were nearly ready to run the 
blockade ; but there was no evidence to confirm the 
apprehensions of the Secretary of State. l><o mention 
was made of any armed vessels, but there were reports 
of wonderful activity among the merchant adventurers 
of Great Britain, stimulated by the tidings of our dis- 
asters under Gen. Pope at Bull Run, which they had 
just previously received, and which they considered 
conclusive that the Union cause could not be sustain- 
ed. Mr. Seward h^d mistaken unarmed En owlish 
blockade runners for armed blockade breakers. Al- 
though relieved by my remarks he persisted still that 
the policy of letters-of-marque was advisable and pro- 
posed that the powerful merchant-steamer Baltic 
should be commissioned, and Comstock, a very compe- 
tent merchant-captain, somewhat connected with, and 
used by the New York Ring should be placed in com- 
mand. Such a proceeding on the part of the govern- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 153 

ment would have been a reflection on naval officers and 
could not be entertained, there was yet no authority 
to grant letters-of-marque, and if the Baltic were char- 
tered or purchased by the Navy, she must I assured 
him, be commanded by a naval officer. 

So long as the subject remained under executive 
control the prudence and firmness of the President in- 
sured the national welfare and safety. But the public 
mind had become angry and highly inflamed, in which 
Congress participated, and on the 3rd of March 1863, 
the last day of the session, an Act was passed declaring, 
** that in all domestic and foreign wars the Presideut 
*' of the United States is authorized to issue to private 
*' armed vessels of the United States, commissions or 
" letters-of-marque and 'general reprisal in such form 
** as he shall think proper, and under the seal of the 
" United States, and make all needful rules and regu- 
"lations for the government thereof, and for the adju- 
" dication and disposal of the prizes and salvages made 
*' by each vessel — provided that the authority confer- 
" red by this Act shall cease and terminate at the end 
*'of three years from the passage of this Act." 

This action of Congress, though general in its char- 
acter would, it was anticipated, have a favorable efl'ect 
abroad. England would be admonished that there 
was a limit to American forbearance. Viewing it in 
this light, and as a warning to Great Britain where the 
spirit of unscrupulous greed, if not of positive enmity 
to the Union, had embarked an immense capital in 
schemes of illicit traffic in violation of our laws and of 
the blockade, the brief and modified enactment was 
acquiesced in. It was moreover felt, notwithstanding 
7* 



154 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWAKD. 



the favor which the project received from the Secretary 
of State, that the country would be secure against any 
rash or precipitate measure by the President to whom 
the whole subject was committed. But, unfortunatelj^, 
the effect of the enactment, and the feeling which 
forced its passage, proA^ed a stimulant which brought 
strength, and added unexpected recruits to the move- 
ment. Among others, the Secretary of the Treasury, 
on w^hom the more cautious and prudent had relied, 
became a convert to, or avowed advocate for, privateers 
and reprisals. The Secretary of State was much 
elated by the enactment, and by the acquisition of the 
Secretary of the Treasury to his policy. He also rep- 
resented that merchants of ISTew York were ready and 
anxious to fit out privateers to take the Alabama and 
Florida, and proposed at once to take measures for 
carrying the law into effect. But the President still 
hesitated, though the law, considered as an expression 
of the sentiment of the legislative branch of the gov- 
ernment, together with the countenance which it re- 
ceived from the Secretary of the Treasury, who was 
understood to be the special representative and ex- 
ponent of the commercial interest, had each an influence 
which it was difficult successfully to resist. I had from 
the first maintained that commerce being sensitive, in- 
telligent merchants and capitalists would not engage in 
such enterprises — that privateers were usually excited 
by the expectation of large returns from captured mer- 
chantmen — that the Alabama and Florida, plundering 
rovers which they would, under present circumstances 
be commissioned to overtake, would, if captured, be 
found destitute of cargo or merchandize, and that ves- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 155 

sels of sufficient magnitude and power to cope success- 
fnllj witli the Alabama would require a large invest- 
ment for so uncertain a venture. Without naming 
persons, Mr, Seward insisted there were responsible 
parties ready to engage in the work so soon as they 
could be licensed, he therefore proceeded at once to 
prepare forms and make " needful rules and reguhitions" 
for the government of privateers in conformity with 
the recent Act. These regulations covering a number 
of pages, he, on tlie 10th of March, one week after the 
enactment submitted to me for review, criticism and 
suggestions. As I was wholly opposed to the proceed- 
ing, I declined the labor, admitted they conformed to 
the legal enactments of 1812; but in a free Cabinet 
discussion I made some general remarks, excepting to 
the regulations as transcending executive authority. 
The subject lingered for two or three weeks during a 
portion of which time I was absent from Washington 
and the President declined to come to a decision while 
I was away. Soon after my return, Mr. Seward 
brought forward the subject and said that parties inter- 
ested were becoming impatient. He proposed that I 
should communicate my objections to his rules in writ- 
ing, and the President concurred in the suggestion. I 
therefore in a day or two, addressed to him the follow- 
ing letter : 

"Navy Department, 

March 31st, 1863. 
" Sir :— 

"When discussino: the rco-ulations coucerninG: ' let- 
ters-of-marque,' etc., a few days since, I made certain 



156 ME. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

suggestions, and you invited me to communicate any 
views I might entertain in writing. 

*'I have felt some delicacy, I may say disinclination, 
to take any active part in this matter, because I have 
from the beginning of our difficulties discouraged the 
policy of privateering in such a war as this we are now 
wao-ino*. The rebels have no commercial marine to 
entice and stimulate private enterprise and capital in 
such undertakings, provided the policy were desirable. 
We, however, have a commerce that invites the cupid- 
ity, zeal and spirit of adventure, which, once commenced, 
it will be difficult to regulate or suppress. A few priva- 
teers let loose among our shipping, like wolves among 
sheep would make sad havoc, as the Alabama and 
the Florida bear witness. It is proposed to encourage 
private enterprise to embark in an undertaking to cap- 
ture the twp wolves or privateers that are abroad 
devastating the seas; and it is said, in addition to 
the wolves, they may be authorized to catch blockade 
runners. The inducement, I apprehend will not meet 
a favorable response. There may be vessels fitted 
out to capture unarmed prizes, but not of sufficient 
force to meet and overcome the Alabama ; if not, the 
great end and purpose of the scheme will fail of accom- 
plishment. 

" To clothe private armed vessels with governmental 
power and authority, including the belligerent right of 
search, will be likely to beget trouble, and the tendency 
must unavoidably be to abuse. Clothed with these 
powers, reckless men will be likely to involve the gov- 
ernment in difficulty, and it was in apprehension of that 
fact, and to avoid it, I encountered .much obloquy and 
reproach at the beginning of the rebellion, and labored 
to institute a less objectionable policy. 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 157 

"Propositions for privateers, for yacht-squadrons, 
for naval brigades, volunteer navy, etc., etc., were, 
with the best intentions in most instances, pressed upon 
the department regardless of the consequences that might 
follow from these rude schemes of jjrivate warfare. It 
was to relieve us of the necessity of going into these 
schemes of private adventure, that the ' Act to provide 
for the temporary increase of tlie Navy,' a})proved 
July 24, 18G1, was so framed as to give authority to 
take vessels into the naval service and to ajjpoint 
officers for them, temj^orarily, to any extent whicli 
the President may deem expedient. Under other laws, 
seamen may be enlisted and their wages fixed by exec- 
utive authority ; and the officers and men so taken 
temporarily into the naval service are subject to the 
huvs for the government of the navy. An ' Act for 
the better government of the navy, approved July 17, 
1862, grants prize-money to any armed vessel in tlie 
service of tlie United States,' in the same manner as to 
vessels of the navy. 

"These laws, therefore, seem and were intended to 
provide all the advantages of letters-of-marque, and yet 
prevent in a great measure, the abuses liable to spring 
from them. Private armed vessels, adopted temporarily 
into the naval service, would be more certainly and 
immediately under the control of the government, than 
if acting only under a general responsibility to law. 

*' It will be necessary to establish strict rules for the 
government of private armed vessels, as to some extent 
they will be likely to be officered and manned by per- 
sons of rude notions and free habits. Con^rt'ss alter 
authorizing letters-of-marque in the war of 1812, adopt- 
ed the necessary legislation for the vessels bearing 
them, by the Act of June 20lh of that vear. This Aet 



158 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

has not been revived. The recent Act concerning let- 
ters of-marque etc., etc., authorized the President to 
" make all needful rules and regulations for the govern- 
ment and conduct of private armed vessels, furnished 
with letters-of-marque.' In pursuance of this authori- 
zation, the 'Regulations' have been prepared, embrac- 
ing the provisions of the statute enacted during the 
War of 1812. These regulations establish, as the stat- 
ute did a penal code. They impose fines and assume 
to authorize punishments, including even capital punish- 
ment. 

" As suggested in our interview, I question the va- 
lidity of such proceedings. Can Congress delegate this 
power of penal legislation to the President ? and if to 
the President, why may it not to any branch of the ex- 
ecutive ? 

" If it can be granted for this special purpose — the 
government of private armed vessels — why not for any 
other purpose ? And if it can delegate the pOwer of 
penal legislation, why could it not delegate any other 
power or powers, to the President, to Commissioners, or 
even to a Committee of its own body, to sit during the 
recess? Why could it not delegate authority to the 
Secretary of the Treasury to legislate respecting im- 
ports, foreign trade, or to the Postmaster-general full 
power of legislation respecting postoffices and post 
routes ? The power of imposing penalties and inflict- 
ing punishments is the essence of legislative power, for it 
is the penalty of transgression that gives force to law. 
These regulations also establish rewards as well as pen- 
alties. They provide that a large bounty shall be paid 
to private armed vessels in certain cases. But no fund 
is appropriated for the purpose by the Act, nor has any 
provision elsewhere been made for it. Can Congress 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 159 

delegate to the President the power to appropriate the 
public moneys, or to take them without specific ap- 
propriation, or pledge the public faith at his discretion 
for an indefinite amount ? 

" As I have already said I have doubts in these par- 
ticulars. They are expressed with some reluctance, be- 
cause in the uneasy condition of the public mind, grow- 
ing out of the lawless depredations of the semi-piratical 
cruisers that are abroad, I am unwilling to interpose 
anything which may be construed into an obstacle to 
repress public indignation, which is so justly excited. I 
did not regret that Congress enacted a law authorizing 
letters-of-marque ; because I verily believe that, with 
it, England can be made to prevent her mercenary citi- 
zens from making war on our commerce under a flag 
that has no recognized nationality. If the police of the 
sea is to be surrendered, and rovers built by English 
capital and manned by Englishmen are to be let loose 
to plunder our commerce, let England understand that 
her ships Avill suffer, and her commerce also be annoyed 
and injured by private armed ships. With her distant 
and dependent colonies, no nation has greater cause to 
oppose maritime robbery and plunder, such as is being 
inflicted on us by Englishmen and English capital, than 
Great Britain. 

" The West Indies are, notoriously, harbors of refuge 
for the cruisers that are plundering our merchants, as 
well as for the infamous and demoralizing business of 
running our blockade, to encourage the insurgents who 
are waging war on our government. Of these ports, 
those of England are the worst, and a vast amount of 
English capital is engaged in illicit traffic, and her 
people and authorities exhibit sympathy fur and aflbrd 



160 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

aid to the insurgents and their abettors, and correspond- 
ing opposition to this government. 

"The English ship-yards are filled with vessels built 
and building for the rebel service, and if measures are 
not taken to prevent, these will soon swarm the seas to 
capture, condemn and destroy American property, with- 
out a port into which they can send their captures for 
adjudication. Enjoying greater advantages than the 
corsairs and sea-rovers that once infested the ocean, 
because protected, harbored and sheltered by govern- 
ments in alliance with and professedly friendly to us, 
while ordinary pirates are outlaws, this species of lawless 
outrage cannot be permitted tO go on. 

" England should be warned that we cannot permit 
this indirect war to continue with impunity — that it 
will provoke and justify retaliation, and that if her 
people and government make war upon our commerce, 
by sending abroad rovers with no nationality, to prey 
upon the property of our citizens, it will be impossible 
to restrain our people from retaliatory measures. 

" I am respectfully, 

" Your ob'd't serv't, 

"Gideon Welles, 

« Sec'Cy of JSfavy:' 
"Hon. Wm. H. Seward, 

'' SecH'y of State:' 

Whilst this letter was on my table, Senator Sum- 
ner, who had opposed the law when on its passage, 
called on me, and was very much disturbed by what 
he had learned from Mr. Seward would be the prob- 
able policy of the administration. From the com- 
mencement he had objected to licensing privateers, and 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 101 

was, when he called, a good deal incensed at some re- 
marks of the Secretary of State whom he had just 
left. It was felt by Mr. Seward to be something of a 
triumph over Mr. Sumner, who often came in conflict 
with his views, and in allusion to whom, when con- 
fronted, as he sometimes was by the President with 
the Senator's opinions, he remarked, *' there were too 
many Secretaries of State in Washington." I handed 
to Mr. Sumner during the interview, my letter which 
was yet unsent, to read, and remarked as I did so, that 
I was very much disappointed at the recent course of 
Mr. Chase, and discouraged by communications just 
received from Earl Russell. He expressed great grat- 
ification with my letter, but hoped before I sent it to 
the State Department that I would read it to Mr. Lin- 
coln ; this was not my practice. I could not doubt that 
Mr. Seward himself on its receipt would submit it to 
the President. 

The evening after this interview, the President 
came across the Square to my house, which was direct- 
ly opposite the executive mansion, and said his princi- 
pal object in calling was to see a letter I had prepared, 
which Mr. Sumner had read and complimented, and 
wished him to peruse. I informed him that the letter 
had gone to Mr. Seward, but 1 would bring him the 
.press copy in the morning. He thought this unne- 
cessary for Mr. Seward would undoubtedly present it. 
He then discussed this subject with others at consider- 
able length. The President met my disbelief tliat 
merchants of character and intelligence would be in- 
duced to engage in the business of privateering, and 
my opinion that Mr. Seward was deceiving himself in 



162 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

tliat respect, by asking whether the best method of 
testing the fact would not be bj giving the merchants 
an opportunity to manifest their views by their acts. 
Let us see, said he, who the men are that are ready and 
anxious to aid the government in this way ; periiaps 
you are mistaken and Seward right. Chase who 
knows, or ought to know the commercial sentiment 
has come into Seward's views. It may be well to 
make the experiment. The State and the Treasury 
may know more correctly the feelings of the merchants 
than the l^avy. I replied, the test would be hazard- 
ous. Should the merchants, as Mr. Seward believed, 
embark in the measure, adventurers would be likely to 
also engage in reprisals, and might involve us in war 
which with the load upon our hands would be disas- 
trous. We ought therefore to act deliberately, and 
with a full and right appreciation of all the probable 
consequences. He said that was true and he had con- 
fidence in my judgment and my opinions, but I might 
be mistaken — the State and the Treasury took a differ- 
ent view, and if I was right in my belief that the mer- 
chants would not engage in privateering, no harm 
could come from the trial. If Seward was mistaken, 
and the substantial men of the country held off, the 
credit would be mine, and all would then be satisfied. 
At the Cabinet meeting on Friday the 3d of April 
Mr. Seward had some side talk with me in relation to 
the assignment of a naval ofiicer of character to the 
service of the State Department, on whom he could 
devolve the labor and details of examining applications 
and preparing papers. He had previously requested 
that Admiral Foote should be detailed for that service, 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 163 

but that officer after looking into the subject requested 
to be excused. As all matters relating to privateers 
and letters-of-marque had in former wars been com- 
mitted to the State Department and were to be on this 
occasion, I objected that the navy ought not to be 
blended with the movement. He very frankly said his 
purpose in asking for a naval officer of rank, was to 
be relieved himself of labor and details — in other 
words, I perceived the Navy Department was to share 
in the responsibility of any failure or imbroglio that 
might result from a policy which it disapproved. 
He named Rear- Admiral C. H. Davis as acceptable, 
who was assigned accordingly. 

The President requested to see me on the following 
morning, Saturday, and as I entered the room he re- 
marked that I would probably be surprised to hear that 
Seward already had application for letters-of-marque. 
I acknowledged I was disappointed if there were re- 
spectable and responsible parties to engage in the busi- 
ness. The President said he knew nothing of the 
gentleman whom Seward had brought him, farther 
than that he had a vessel, and was anxious to enter 
upon the service. Taking up and looking at a paper, 
he said the gentleman's name was Seybert, that he had 
a vessel of one hundred tons, into which he proposed 
to put a screw — that this gentleman was then in the 
audience room, and he would call him in, that I might 
examine him. This I informed him was unnecessarv, 
for I was familiar with the case which had already been 
before me. There were, I assured the President no 
New York merchants or capital in this cntei'prise. 
Seybert was, I had learned, a Prussian adventurer. 



164 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

who called himself a citizen of South Carolina, and 
I preferred that the Secretary of State should dispose 
of this and all other similar applications. With a 
twinkle in his eye the President said he certainly 
would not trouble me farther in this instance, but 
wait for the merchants. 

Senator Sumner informed me at the same time 
that the President had experienced great difficulty in 
getting a sight of my letter of the 31st of March. Mr. 
Seward did not bring it to his notice as was expected, 
and when he asked for it, one excuse after another was 
giv'Cn, but the President persisted until it was sent 
him, when he notified the Senator, and together they 
read it, and discussed the whole subject of privateer- 
ing and reprisals. 

This, with Seybert's application, the only one that 
ever after came to my knowledge, terminated the pri- 
vateer policy, closed the subject of letters-of-marque 
and reprisals during the rebellion. I never again saw 
the Pegulations or heard them alluded to. That Mr. 
Seward was earnest and sincere in his belief that pri- 
vateers might render efficient service, I never question- 
ed, but it was fortunate for the administration and the 
country, that he did not direct affairs for the nation in 
regard to the policy of letters-of-marque during our civil 
war. Mr. Lincoln proved himself on that subject and 
others through that whole exciting period, the '' supe- 
rior in native intellectual power/' and in administrative 
abihty. 



ME. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 165 



Official intercourse between the Secretary of State, 
and the Secretary of the Navy was probably more fre- 
quent than between any other two departments. 

The service of naval officers on foreign stations 
where courtesy and the obligations of treaties were to be 
observed and maintained, and questions growing out 
of the exercise of belligerent rights, including those of 
blockade, contraband and the right of search, brought 
tlie heads of these two departments in contact, and 
rendered consultations necessary. These consultations, 
often in personal interviews, but sometimes by corre- 
spondence, brought out the points in which they 
agreed and disagreed, developed the views of each 
and to some extent the policy and principles and the 
working of the administration. But however antago- 
nistic their opinions, there was between the two 
Secretaries always harmony and mutual good-will and 
friendly personal relations during the years they were 
associated together. When they did not agree on any 
public measure, the subject was submitted to the 
President who usually decided for himself; but some- 
times the differences were made the subject of Cabi- 
net consultation. As a general thing the Secretary of 
State was averse to bringing department differences 
before tlie Cabinet. Yisiting the President daily, there 
were occasions when Mr. Seward obtained a decision 
without the President's being aware of any difierence, 
or that the point was contested. A decision once 
made and promulgated it was often difficult to have it 
reversed. In mentioning these and other incidents 
rendered necessary in remarking on the " Memorial Ad- 



166 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

dress," my object has been to exhibit the executive 
ability and peculiar management of Mr. Seward, 
which Mr. Adams assumes, and many have believed, 
controlled and directed the administration of Mr. Lin- 
coln. Such was not the fact. The ideas of the two 
as to the extent and exercise of executive authority 
were different, the grants and limitations of power by 
the constitution were less respected by the Secretary 
of State than by the President, hence Mr." Seward 
often and especially when Congress was not in session, 
freely and sometimes inconsiderately if not rashly, 
gave unfortunate opinions — conceded away important 
rights, and himself, exercised questionable executive 
authority, on the assumption, apparently, that the ex- 
ecutive was the government, and his power in the ad- 
ministration almost absolute. Nevertheless Mr. Sew- 
ard was timid in facing Congress, felt his responsibility 
to the legislative department more than to the Consti- 
tution and disliked controversy, especially with associ- 
ates who were compelled to sometimes question the 
correctness of his views. His readiness to manifes't 
his authority and magnify his position led him to 
make off-hand promises and to decide questions with- 
out first investigating .and ascertaining their true 
merits, or his authority to act and his power to fulfil 
his engagements. This precipitancy not nnfrequent- 
ly begat embarassment and betrayed not only a want 
of wise diplomatic reserve, but of calm and intelligent 
executive ability. But if he was at tiines rash and ar- 
bitrary it was from personal weakness, a desire to 
show his power ratber than from malevolence or want 
of patrioitsm. Towards the demands of foreign gov- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 167 

ermnents, particularly the great powers who were of- 
ten wrong and unreasonable, he was submissive, too 
ready to 3'ield and make concessions tliat could not be 
justified, and which were in fact sometimes a surren- 
der of undoubted national rights. 

In October 1862, Mr. Seward sent me the copy of 
a singular letter from the Spanish Minister claiming 
that the dominion of Spain extended six miles instead 
of three from the coast of Cuba. In his reception 
and treatment of this absurd demand, and in trans- 
mitting the letter making the claim, Mr. Seward un- 
wittingly erred and made some unfortunate admissions, 
said '' the questions raised were important and by no 
means easy of solution" — yet there was no principle 
or rule better settled by the consent and practice of 
maritime nations, than that the marine league or three 
miles off the open sea was the extent of sovereign 
dominion. This novel assumption if permitted or enter- 
tained would have been a wonderful protection to the 
rebels and blockade-runners that were swarming the 
waters of Cuba and its vicinity. Instead of squarely 
meeting and promptly dismissing this strange claim 
made at a strange period, when we w^ere engaged in a 
deadly struggle with the insurgents and their covert 
allies, or bringing the subject before the Cabinet, Mr. 
Seward had allowed himself to discuss it. Instead of 
appealing to the law of nations which no Secretary 
of State could change, he had, sitting in the State 
Department, incautiously and improperly put our 
rights in jeopardy by admitting that the Spanish 
government, when it asserted that an im]:)rovement in 
ordnance enlarged the marine jurisdiction of every 



168 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

sovereign, bad " set forth a true principle of interna- 
tional law." But the law should have governed him. 
Neither he nor the Spainish Minister, nor both com- 
bined could revoke it. Other nations were interested. 
lie might as he had undertaken in the matter of the 
captured mails, renounce the right of the United States, 
but that would not unsettle or change the law of nations. 
The following is the correspondence referred to : 

"Department of State. 

"Washington, Oct. 10, 1862. 

"Sir: — 

" I have the honor to communicate^for your informa- 
tion, a copy of a note which has been received at this 
Department from His Excellency Seiior Don Gabriel 
Garcia y Tassara, Minister-Plenipotentiary of Iler Catho 
lie Majesty, on the subject of the marine dominion 
appurtenant to the island of Cuba. You will learn from 
this paper that Spain claims that this dominion covers 
six miles upon the open sea, instead of three miles as it 
has been understood by this government. The questions 
raised by this note are important, and by no means easy 
of solution. The Spanish Government sets forth a true 
principle of international law when it states that the 
marine jurisdiction of every sovereign extends the length 
of a cannon shot from the shore. It has however, been 
generally agreed, by the acquiescence rather than by the 
formal consent of nations, that this extent is a marine 
league, or three miles. Spain now claims that the limit 
may be extended beyond the three miles, so however, as 
to be kept within the length of a gun-shot, as it is ex- 
tended by modern improvements in the machinery of 
ordnance, and that each nation may fix the limit of its 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 169 

own marine dominion, with that reservation, for itself, 
without making general or specific arrangements for tho 
purpose with other states. Spain, moreover, claims that 
she has thus fixed the limit for herself at six miles. The 
subject will receive due examination by this Department. 
As a preliminary to that examination, I have the honor 
to ask you how the allowance of this claim would prac- 
tically effect the efficiency of the navy in the exercise of 
such belligerent rights as the United States have occasion 
to maintain and exercise in the vicinity of Cuba. 
" I am, Sir, Your Ob't Serv't, 

" Wm H. Seward." 
**Hon. Gideon Welles, 

" ^^G't'y of the NmyP 

" Navy DErAiixMEXT, 
"Sir:— Oct. 15, 1862. 

"I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of 
your communication of the 10th inst. covering the dis- 
patch of His Excellency Don G. G. Tassara, Minister- 
Plenipotentiary of Her Catholic Majesty, on the subject 
of the marine dominion appurtenant to the island of 
Cuba — claiming that it covers six miles upon the open 
sea, instead of three miles as hitherto understood by tliis 
government — admitting the recognized principle that 
marine jurisdiction extends to cannon ball rangro^ and 
citing modern improvements in artillery as authoritv in 
support of his claim. 

" You do me the honor to ask me, as preliminary to 
the examination which you propose to make, how the 
allowance of this claim would practically aflect the 
efficiency of the Navy in the exercise of such belligerent 
rights as the United States have occasion to maintain 
and exercise in the vicinity of Cuba." 
8 



170 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

"The concession of this claim would be inconsistent 
with the exercise of our belligerent rights at this junc- 
ture, in consequence of the constant and flagrant abuse 
of neutral flags by a class of contrabandists who make 
it their business to set our laws at defiance, violate our 
blockade and aid and assist the insurgents in the war 
which they are waging upon our government. The 
vessels engaged in this system of indirect aggression 
upon a country at peace with Spain, when pursued by 
our cruisers, fly to the shelter of neutral territory to 
escape, and the more extended the maritime jurisdiction 
of Cuba and the possessions of other governments in 
the West Indies, the greater impunity to these violators 
of our laws. 

"We have no wish to intrude upon the unquestioned 
rights of Spain, whose government has manifested a 
friendly spirit and just regard towards us in other par- 
ticulars, but the assertion of this extended jurisdiction 
at this particular period, I should deem unfortunate. 
The eflect Avould be to aid and encourage mischievous 
wrong-doers and to inflict injury upon a friendly nation 
in the day of her misfortune. 

"At a more propitious moment, the question of 
maritime jurisdiction and the influence of modern 
improvement in ordnance upon it, might be discussed 
and settled with advantage; but the present time is 
inopportune for such a novel interpretation of the law 
of nations. The publicists and the world generally 
have hitherto regarded the marine league adjacent^ to 
the coast as the limit of territorial jurisdiction, and our 
Naval oflicers in this particular have concurred in this 
view. 

" Permit me to add that the object of law is to put 
an end to license and discretion and to establish a fixed 



MK. LINX'OLN AND MR. SEWARD. 171 

rule which all may ascertain, and be guided bj-. It is 
a provision of international law that the jurisdiction of 
a state extends to a marine league or cannon rano-e 
beyond its shores. The marine league is somethino- 
fixed and definite ; the cannon range is not. To insist 
on excluding the former and retaining the latter only, 
would be to revive the license and uncertainty wliich it 
was the purpose of the law to prevent. The question 
and dispute would be constantly recurring. What is 
the range of a cannon ? 

"Tliere is no doubt that the marine league was 
adopted because it was near, but somewhat more tlian 
the extreme range of the heaviest ordnance in ordinary 
use, when the rule was adopted ; and it is so now, not- 
withstanding the improvements in ordnance. Cannon 
rang^e is merely referred to in the rule as showinir the 
reason of the rule; if it had been intended to be the 
rule in itself, it would have been absurd to refer at the 
same time to the marine leao;ue. The marine leaaue is 
now universally regarded as the fixed rule. 

"If ordnance should come into general use, throwintT* 

their projectiles to a greater distance than a league, 

nations might feel called upon to consult with each 

other as to a revision of the rule. But in the meantime 

for any one nation to repudiate it, is simply to set 

itself above the obligation of international law, without 

even the pretence of necessity. What real danger or 

inconvenience is apprehended from a continuance of the 

rule? 

" I am respectfully, 

" Your Ob't. Servt., 

" Gideon Welles, 

" Hon. Wm. II. Seward, 
jSecYi/ of State:' 



172 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

Unfortunately the Secretary had said too much to 
the Spanish diplomat to retract, and put himself in a 
right position , without a virtual acknowledgment of 
error in the early discussion ; and the Minister was not 
inclined to relinquish the ground he had gained, but 
continued to press his advantage. The result was, that 
instead of referring to and abiding by the law and by 
established usage and practice, the Secretary and the 
Minister agreed to submit the question to the king of 
the Belgians for a decision, and the project for a Con- 
vention for that purpose was drawn up by which the 
two governments stipulated in the second article, to 
'' abide by the decision of His said Majesty." 

When, more than a year after this arrangement be- 
tween the two functionaries, had been entered into, 
though not confirmed by the Senate, I learned what 
was proposed to be done, I objected that the consent 
to submit our unquestioned and undoubted right to 
arbitration was wrong. There was little doubt the 
decision would, as Mr. Seward felt confident, be favor- 
able to us in conformity to the law and the practice 
of nations, but it was highly improper and not good 
and faithful administration to put our undoubted rights 
in jeopardy. Had Spain laid claim to the possession 
of Long Island or Nantucket, the idea of submitting 
the claim to the decision of the king of the Belgians 
or any other king would never have been for a mo- 
ment entertained, l^or should the principle and our 
legal right in regard to the great highway of nations 
which Spain had undertaken to invade and appropri- 
ate to her exclusive jurisdiction, be matter of arbitra- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 173 

ment, nor would other governments, whatever might 
be the decision regard it as obligatory on them. 

Mr. Adams sajs, '' in respect to the foreign rela- 
tions, Mr. Lincoln knew absolutely nothing," but that 
'' it may be questioned whether any head of an execu- 
tive department ever approached Mr. Seward in the 
extent and minuteness of the instructions he was con- 
stantly issuing during the critical period of the war." 
Tliese frequent and minute instructions and conces- 
sions, incautiously given and admitted, were often er- 
roneous and embarrassing. Had the preposterous 
pretensions of the Spanish Minister which Mr. Sew- 
ard listened to and consented to negotiate been suc- 
cessful, scarcely a greater or more injurious error 
could be found in our history. It would have 
afforded great additional security to the rebels and 
blockade-runners. 



Sbiultaneously with this Spanish claim of an ex- 
tension of maritime jurisdiction the Secretary of State 
sent me a copy of an unofficial note from Mr. Stuart 
of the English legation, and at the time, Charge 
d'affaires, expressing apprehensions that the " Bermu- 
da,'' a captured blockade-runner would be purchased by 
the Nav}^ Department and taken into service prior to 
condemnation. AVe were at that time availing ourselves 
of every suital)le steamer in the country that could be 
armed and made efficient in enforcino^ our extensive 
blockade, which Earl Russell had pronounced at the 
beginning of our troubles an impossibility ; but in due 
time he admitted it was effective. AVhen the block- 



174 ME. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWAED 

ade was first proclaimed we could neither build, nor 
buy from our merchant service a sufficient number of 
vessels to enforce it and therefore had a standing order 
to obtain from the courts, such prizes as were in the 
possession of the prize-commissioners and liable to 
condemnation. In this way we procured many excel- 
lent steamers, which having been built for speed were 
a valuable acquisition to our naval force. This pro- 
ceeding became a great annoyance to our open ene- 
mies, and no less so to their secret allies who were 
largely engaged in illicit traffic, and found their risks 
increased by some of their own most valuable and ex- 
pensive vessels which were turned against them. To 
prevent this as far as possible, and if they could not 
wholly prevent, to postpone as long as possible the 
condemnation of the steamers captured, delays in court 
were interposed and the legality of the captures con- 
tested, although there was not a doubt that they would 
ultimately be condemned as good prize. In the mean- 
time the prizes were, besides the detention, deteriora- 
ting and often in a perishing condition. The courts 
and prize-commissioners acting in good faith to both 
captors and claimants, always had vessel and cargo 
promptly appraised and disposed of at their true value, 
and the money paid into court to abide the final de- 
cree. That there might be no delay in the transfer, a 
board consisting of a naval constructor, engineer 
and ordnance officer was empowered by the Secretary 
of the Kavy to make a thorough examination of every 
prize deemed suitable for naval service, and on a fa- 
vorable report he deposited the amount of the apprais- 
ed value with the registrar of the court, and had her 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 175 

iminediatelj taken to the ^avy-^^ardj fitted and armed 
for naval diitj. 

This was tlie state of facts and the course of pro- 
ceeding when Mr. Stuart, Her Majesty's Charge 
d'affiiircs on tlie 20tli of October, 1862 sent his note, 
shrewdly made unofficial^ to Mr. Seward, Secretary of 
State. The latter without knowledge of the facts, and 
without investigation or inquiry — without consulting 
the President or Cabinet or any one of thein, commit- 
ted himself at once against the Navy Department and 
the government, and in an official communication 
'' hoped the unofficial apprehensions of Mr. Stuart are 
unfounded, as such a measure would afford ground for 
serious complaint on the part of the British govern- 
ment, which under existing circumstances it is desira- 
ble to avoid." 

It was a timid and hasty abandonment of a right, 
an admission of wrong on our part, and an acknowl- 
edgement of the propriety of foreign interference, 
wdiolly unjustifiable, aside from the obvious intent of 
keeping out of our service as long as possible an 
important prize, captured in its attempts to supply the 
insursrents with munitions of war. 

Subjoined is the correspondence : 

"Department of State, 

Washington, Oct. 10, 1862." 
« Sir :— 

" I liave the honor to enclose a copy of an unofficial 
note of this date, addressed to me by Mr. Stuart, Her 
Britannic Majesty's Charge d'affaires, expressing 
apprehensions that the steamer " Bermuda'' may be 
taken for the use of the Navy Department prior to her 



176 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

condemnation at Philadelphia. It is to be hoped that 
these apprehensions are unfounded as such a measure 
would afford ground for serious complaint on the part 
of the British Government, which under existing cir- 
cumstances, it is desirable to avoid. 

" I have the honor to be, &c, 

" Wm. H. Seward." 
" The Hon. Gideon Welles, 

" ^ec't'y of the JSfavy:^ 

"Navy Department, 

Oct. 15, 1862." 
" Sir :— 

" I had the honor on the evening of Saturday last, the 
11th inst. to receive your communication of the 10th 
inst. enclosing the copy of an unofficial note from 
Mr. Stuart, Her Britannic Majesty's Charge d'affaires, 
expressing an apprehension that it is the intention of 
the naval authorities to appropriate the steamer 
Bermuda, although no judgment has as yet been pro- 
nounced upon her by the court. 

" This is certainly a very extraordinary communica- 
tion from Her Majesty's Charge d'affaires. The custody 
of captured property, or the disposition to be made of 
it before adjudication, is not regulated by international 
law, but that law requires that an adjudication should 
be had as speedily as possible. 

" In some cases the captors themselves have a right 
to dispose of captured property before adjudication. 
(2. Rob. 31.) 

" The court, after the captured property comes into 
its possession, may deliver it on bond to the captors or 
claimants, or if ship or other cargo is in a perishing 
condition or liable to deterioration pending the process. 



MK. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 177 

may order a sale of it hj interlocutory decree. This is 
the English law and the practice followed by our courts. 
There is no doubt as to this discretionary power of a 
l^rize-court or as to the practice. The property is al- 
ways supposed to be in the custody of the court, l)ut the 
practice has been from time immemorial to consider the 
proceeds as representing the thing itself. Certainly the 
safest custodian of the property is the government, 
which is ultimately responsible. The marshal, who or- 
dinarily has the custody, is but an officer of the govern- 
ment. In the event of a decree of restitution, if the 
custodian has been found to be unfaithful and the cap- 
tors unable to indemnify the foreign claimants, the gov- 
ernment must make the restitution and indemnify the 
claimants. There could be no additional risk to the 
claimants, but rather the contrary, if the government 
should take immediate possession of the captured prop- 
erty without waiting an order of the prize-court. All 
that international law requires is, that the evidence and 
all the necessary witnesses be placed in the presence of 
the court. 

" International law is rigid against individual captors ; 
they should not pillage in the slightest degree, upon 
pain of forfeiting their rights. But it does not pretend 
to lay down rules for the custody of captured property. 
It is enough that the government of the captors is ulti- 
mately responsible for any injury done by the captors. 

"The Bermuda was captured on the 27th of April, 
1862, about fifteen miles N. E. by E. from tlie " Hole in 
the Wall," and brought into Philadelphia. She has 
been appraised by order of the court, on application of 
the prize-commissioners, and the Navy Department pro- 
poses to purchase her under the decree of the court. If 
BO, the amount of valuation will be deposited in con- 



178 MB. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWARD. 

formity with law and the order of the court with the 
registrar. The whole proceeding is strictly legal and 
strictly regular and for the benefit of all having a legal 
interest in the captured steamer. 

"There is no novelty in these proceedings. Other 
captured vessels have in like manner been disposed of, 
and not infrequently purchased by the Navy Depart- 
ment on appraisement, not only in Philadelphia under 
the order of Judge Cadwalader, but in New York under 
Judge Betts, and in Key West under Judge Marvin. 
But these are matters in which I recognize no right 
for foreign interference. The capture was lawful and 
prima facie correct. 

"It was made under the authority of the United 
States in the exercise of an undoubted belligerent right. 
But the capture is subject to adjudication, and if the 
court shall fail to condemn, the United States must and 
will resi^ond in damages. But until the final judgment 
of the court, I know of no right for foreign interfer- 
ence. 

" I cannot forbear the expression of my surprise at the 
interposition of Her Majesty's representative in behalf of 
a vessel captured with such an amount of contraband of 
war on board intended to afford assistance to rebels who 
are waging war upon this government. Her cargo of 
guns, shot, shell, powder, etc., is a perfect magazine of mu- 
nitions designed, as you and I well knew before she left 
the shores of England, for those of our countrymen 
who are in insurrection. Taken as she was on the high 
seas with contraband of war on board in large quanti- 
ties, does Her Majesty's representative appear, evien un- 
officially, in behalf of this vessel, whose mission was to do 
wrong — to violate our laws, injure our country and fur- 
nish insurgent rebels with the means to destroy our coun- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 179 

tryraon, with wliom lie and his government are profess- 
edly on terras of amity and friendship ? 

" Assuredly Her ]\[ajesty's Charge d'affaires could not 
have been aware of the character of the steamer Bermu- 
da and her cargo, or he would never have permitted 
himself to have been interested for her. Captured as 
she was on the high seas, filled with material to inflict 
wrong upon a nation with which Great Britain is at 
peace, I confess my astonishment at the interposition of 
Her Majesty's Charge d'affaires in the action of our 
courts. The case of the Bermuda is so transparently 
wrong as to admit of no doubt as to the final result in 
regard to her, but were it otherwise, the government of 
the United States is not only abundantly able to respond, 
but is always anxious to do right in matters of this 
description. We may be wronged and experience bad 
faith from others, but these will never induce our courts 
or our government to be unjust. 

" The opportunity is not an improper one for me to 
invite your attention to the conduct of the British Co- 
lonial authorities in permitting Iler Majesty's Proclama- 
tion to be constantly disregarded, and good faith and 
the laws of neutrality to be persistently violated. Ves- 
sels, as is known to us and to the whole world, are con- 
stantly leaving certain ports in the British West Indies, 
avowedly to run our blockade and furnish assistance to 
the insurgents in their criminal assault upon our gov- 
ernment. Nassau is notoriously an entrepot for sys- 
tematic arrangements to violate our blockade, where 
cargoes are interchanged, contraband of war transhipped, 
and vessels are received and fitted out, despite the re- 
monstrance of our Consul, who has repeatedly brought 
these flagitious proceedings to the notice of the public 
authorities. So flagrant indeed was the case of the 



180 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWAKD. 

Oreto that she was once or twice detained, and after 
the formality of a trial, most extraordinary in its char- 
acter and results, was permitted to depart by the British 
Courts, and, as is well known, directly after, ran the 
blockade at Mobile. 

" But the Colonial authorities are not alone in fault. 
More recently we have intelligence that the steamer ' 290 ' 
alias the * Alabama,' which our Consul and our Minister 
at London warned the British authorities was being pre- 
pared to depredate upon our commerce and make war 
upon our flag, but which in spite of these remonstrances 
they permitted to escape, has got abroad and is seizing, 
sinking and burning the property of innocent merchants. 

" Who is to be responsible for the devastation made 
by this rebel rover which has never yet visited the ports 
of any other country but those of Great Britain, when 
the government of that country was repeatedly admon- 
ished of her true character and purpose before she left 
its shores ? 

*' I know of no case in history that has a parallel in 
the enormity of the outrage committed, as between 
friendly nations, to that of this semi-piratical vessel 
from England which is now plundering and destroying- 
cur commerce. From the commencement of the insur- 
rection, the insurgents who are making war upon our 
government and endeavoring to subvert it, without a 
naval vessel of their own afloat or a port free of access, 
have gone to England — a power that is professedly on 
terms of amity with the United States — and there have 
experienced no difficulty in contracting for and procur- 
ing to be- built and sent forth, a cruiser, armed and 
ladened with munitions of war, to make waste and de- 
struction wifh the property of our citizens who are 
wholly uninformed, and consequently wholly unpre- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 181 

pared for sucli aggressive proceedings uiidcr any 
guise from Great Britain. This vessel which is commit- 
ting tliese outrages upon peaceful commerce, it will be 
borne in mind, has never visited the waters of any nation 
but those of Great Britain, is committing liavoc upon 
the commerce of a people wlio enjoyed, as they sup- 
posed, peaceful relations with that country. 

"On every principle of equity and right, morally 
and politically, the British nation shoukl be hehl respon- 
sible fur the losses which our citizens sustain by the 
depredations which this semi-piratical cruiser, which 
was built on British soil, and went forth from a British 
port against the remonstrance and protests of our Minis- 
ter and Consul, to prey upon American commerce. 

" I do not permit myself to doubt that you have 
been attentive to these facts and have duly presented 
them in the proper quarter, asserting our rights and our 
sense of the injury that our country and countrymen 
have received. But I have deemed it not inopportune, 
nor improper in me, to invite your especial attention to 
the subject, because there is no concealment of the fact 
that there are at this time vessels being built and others 
purchased and fitted out with arms and munitions and 
contraband of war in various places in Great Britain, 
notoriously to promote aggressive war against the 
United States. 

" I am respectfully, 

" Your obed't serv't, 

" Gideon Welles, 
" Sec'Vy of the XavyJ*^ 
"Hon. W:^. H. Seward, 

" Sec'fy of Stated 

Thio corrcs])ondeiK'C, it will be noliv-cd, was not 



182 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

with Lord Lyons, the Minister, who was then absent, 
but with Mr. Stuart a subordinate then temporarily 
in charge of the legation, and who improved his' 
opportunity, which Lord Lyons would scarcely have 
asked to obtain concessions from our Secretary of 
State in the case of captured mails as well as cap- 
tured vessels. In the case of captured mails, it 
will be remembered Lord Lyons disavowed to • Mr. 
Sumner that he had ever made a demand, but that it 
was a voluntary renunciation of our right by our 
Secretary of State who was supposed to be the 
authorized organ of the government. In a letter of 
the 31st of December following, Lord Lyons, who had 
resumed his duties, admitted that by '^ a British statute 
authorizing the sale of a ship before the decision of 
an appellate court has been pronounced, is well- 
founded," — that " the exercise of such an abstract 
power of sale is not denied by Her Majesty's Govern- 
ment to the United States authorities," but, he thouglit 
" the claimant ought to be preferred as a purchaser," etc. 
This letter of the British Minister disposed of the 
unofficial apprehensions of his subordinate — apprehen- 
sions in which the Secretar^^ of State participated, and 
" hoped were unfounded," but which the Secretary of 
the Navy, thus admonished or rebuked, disregarded. 
The transfer in this and other cases, was carried into 
eft'ect, notwithstanding hopes and fears and timid 
concessions of the experienced government official, 
who according to Mr. Adams, had the " solid power to 
direct affairs" — and possessed " breadth of philosophic 
experience" and "native intellectual power" greatly 
superior to Mr. Lincoln. 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 183 

The President had a liappy way of illustrating 
questions and sometimes disposing of a subject by an 
anecdote, which, better than an elaborate argument, 
expressed his opinion. In the latter part of the win- 
ter of 186:t, Mr. Seward came one day to the cabinet 
council with a full portfolio, and brow clouded and 
disturbed. The President ever watchful, immediately 
detected difficulty, and exhibited his concern as the 
Secretary of State slowly adjusted his papers. Mr. 
Seward commenced by alluding to the fact that Spain 
was sick of the European alliance, and was beginning 
to manifest towards our country a more friendly spirit ; 
that her government had never been fully identified 
with Palmerston and Louis Napoleon in their intrigue 
for European intervention, but she had at the begin- 
nino: of American troubles committed herself to some 
extent and been induced to undertake to recover her 
possessions in San Domingo. She had however been 
unfortunate and met unexpected resistance. The 
negroes were making a great struggle to maintain 
their independence, and had the sympathies of the 
abolitionists of our country with them. It was im- 
portant in every point of view to detach Spain from 
the alliance and preserve her friendship, at the same 
time not give offence to our own countrymen whose 
sympathies in the present condition of affairs were en- 
listed in behalf of the negroes. In this Spanish- 
Dominican complication we were pressed from both 
quarters, and it was a delicate and grave question what 
position we should take and what course pursue. On 
one side was Spain, whom we wish to conciliate, on 



184 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

the other side, the negroes who had become great fa- 
vorites and wanted our good- will in resisting Spanish 
oppression. 

The President's countenance indicated that his 
mind was relieved before Seward had concluded. He 
remarked that the dilemma of the Secretary of State 
reminded him of an interview between two negroes .in 
Tennessee. One was a preacher, who with the crude 
and strange notions of the ignorant of his race was en- 
deavoring to admonish and enlighten his brother Afri- 
can of the importance of religion and the dangers of 
the future. " Dere are," said Josh, the preacher, " two 
roads before you, Jo. Be careful which you take. 
One ob dem roads leads straight to hell — de odder 
goes right to damnation." Jo opened his eyes with 
affright and under the inspired eloquence, and awful 
danger before him exclaimed, '' Josh, take which road 
you please — I shall go thro' de woods." 

" I am not willing,'' said the President, " to assume 
any new troubles or responsibility at this time, and shall 
therefore avoid going to one place with Spain or with 
the negro to the other, but shall take to the woods. 
We will maintain an honest and strict neutrality." 



The relation of the circumstances attendins: the 
capture and release of the rebel emissaries, Mason and 
Slidell, is pregnant with error. The excitement which 
accompanied the intelligence of the capture of these 
mischievous men was great, and had at one time a 
threatening aspect. The final disposition of the ques- 
tion, with the restoration of the prisoners, to British 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 185 

authority, might well be mentioned as displaying the 
marked and in some respects perliaps happy trait of 
Mr. Seward in adapting himself to circumstances which 
he could not control. But Mr. Adams fails to briner 
out that shrewd diplomatic quality of Mr. Seward's 
mind, and strives to inculcate an impression that the 
Secretary of State stood alone ; was wise, sagacious, 
reserved, and profound, when others were blind, pre- 
cipitate, and weak ; took upon himself " the whole 
weight of popular indignation,'* and, " like the Roman 
Curtius, who leaped into the abyss which could have 
been closed in no other way,'' he oflered himself a sac- 
rifice to secure the safety of the state. Mr. Seward 
should receive credit for the dexterous and skilful dis- 
patch wliich he prepared on his own change of position. 
It exhibits his readiness and peculiar tact and talent 
to extricate himself from and to pass over difficulties. 
But in point of fact no man was more elated or jubilant 
over the capture of the emissaries than Mr. Seward, 
who for a time made no attempt to conceal his gratifi- 
cation and approval of the act of Wilkes. But while 
he and most of the Cabinet and country were hilarious, 
the President had doubts, misgivings, and regrets, 
which were increased after an interview with Senator 
Sumner, with whom he often — sometimes to the dis- 
gust and annoyance of Mr. Seward — advised on con- 
troverted or disputed international questions, and espe- 
cially when there were differences between himself and 
the Secretary of State. 

On the question of giving up the emissaries, Mr. 
Adams says : " When the time came for the assembly 
of the Cabinet, not a sign had been given by tlie Pros- 



186 MK. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

ident, or any of the members, favorable to concession. 
Mr. Seward, who had been charged with the official 
duty of furnishing the expected answer, assumed tlie 
responsibility of preparing his able argument, upon 
which a decision was made to surrender the men. 
Upon him would have rested the whole weight of 
popular indignation had it proved formidable. If I 
have been rightly informed, when read, it met with 
few comments and less approbation. On the other 
hand, there was no resistance. Silence gave consent. 
It was the act of Mr. Seward, and his name was to be 
associated with it, whether for good or for evil." 

The truth is, not only had the President expressed 

his doubts of the legality of the capture, and had them 

increased, while Mr. Seward was rejoicing over and 

approving of the proceeding, but Mr. Blair from the 

first had denounced the act as nnathorized, irregular, 

and illegal. ]^ot being a special admirer of Wilkes, 

Mr. Blair recommended that Wilkes should be ordered 

to take the Iroquois and go with Mason and Slidell to 

England, and deliver them to the British government ; 

for Palmerston and Russell would, he said, seize the 

occasion to make war. The prompt and voluntary 

disavowal of the act of Wilkes, and delivering over the 

prisoners, would have evinced our confidence in our 

own power, and been a manifestation of our indifference 

and contempt for the emissaries, and a rebuke to the 

alleged intrigues between the rebels and the English 

Cabinet. Mr. Seward took a totally different view ; 

scouted the idea of letting the prisoners go ; said the 

British did not want them, and we could not think of_ 

delivering them up. While Mr. Blair did not go about 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 187 

at the time proclafniing liis opinions on a subject wliich 
was under consideration, liis dissent from the original 
views of the Secretary of State, and his condemnation 
of the act of Wilkes, are notorious amons: those who 
were intimate with the transactions of the government. 
The time for further withholding the facts, and permit- 
ting men like Mr. Adams to be misled, has gone by. 
The truth in relation to these and other matters, so 
long perverted and suppressed, should be known, and 
history set right. 

N^early every member of the administration, like 
Mr. Seward, rejoiced in the capture of these mischiev- 
ous men. ISTo one coincided with Mr. Blair in his 
suggestion to compel Wilkes to return them to the 
custody of Great Britain, however wise it may have 
been in view of subsequent events. But the irregular 
action of Wilkes in this case was in various ways the 
cause of serious embarrassment. If the proceedings 
could not be fully justified, neither could they, in the 
then condition of affairs, and the excited state of 
public feeling, be censured and condemned. But the 
Secretary of the Navy, before hearing from Great 
Britain, before even the administration had passed 
upon the subject, was compelled to recognize and 
approve or disapprove the act, and communicate the 
transaction in his Annual I^avy Keport, just then to be 
submitted to the President and Congress. In that 
Report, and in a congratulatory letter of the 30th of 
November, allusion is made to the irreii:ularitv of 
Wilkes, which, it is suggested, might be excused in 
view of the patriotic motives; "but it must by no 
means be permitted to constitute a precedent hereafter 



188 ME. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

for the treatment of any similar infraction of neutral 
obligations b}^ foreign vessels engaged in commerce or 
the carrying trade." This Report, though bearing 
date of the 2d of December, the day on which Con- 
gress convened, was, as is usual with Annual Eeports, 
delivered complete to the President at the last regular 
Cabinet meeting preceding the session, which was on 
Friday, the 29th of November, 1861, to be trans- 
mitted with the Message. Of course the Naval Report 
was seen on that day by Mr. Seward, who until then 
had taken no exception to the capture ; but on the 
succeeding day, the 30th of November, the date of 
the congratulatory letter to Wilkes, he wrote to Mr. 
Adams what the latter gentleman calls the " prelimi- 
nary dispatch that saved the dignity of the country.'* 
These matters, it will be borne in mind, were 
weeks before hearing from England, and before Mr. 
Seward's elaborate answer of the 26th of December to 
the demand of the British government for the sur- 
render of the emissaries. When Mr. Adams declares 
that " not a sign had been given by the President or 
any member of the Cabinet favorable to concession," 
at the time that answer was prepared, he commits an 
egregious mistake. The President was from the first 
willing to make concession. Mr. Blair advocated it. 
Mr. Seward was at the beginning opposed to any idea 
of concession which involved giving up the emissaries, 
but yielded at once, and with dexterity, to the peremp- 
tory demand of Great Britain. Let him have all the 
applause which belongs to him for the facility and 
diplomatic skill which he displayed in that change, 
but in doing so. It is unjust to the President and 



MR. LINCOLN AND MK. SEWARD. 180 

others to misrepresent tliem, or to mistake or pervert 
the facts in regard to them or Mr. Seward. 



These incidents selected from among many indicate 
something of the managing expediency, fertility of 
resources, and administrative manner of Mr. Seward, 
and illustrate the " superior intellectual power" and 
** force of moral discipline ' which the " Memorial Ad- 
dress" undertakes to say, enabled him to "direct affivirs 
for the benefit of the nation, through the name of 
another." Acting at times from impulse, often with- 
out sufficient forethought of consequences — fond of 
displaying power — frequently exercising questionable 
authority — prompted in some degree by jobbing and 
lobby surroundings which, fostered at Albany and 
defeated at Chicago, followed him to "Washington, 
where not a few of those followers contrived to grow 
rich as the country grew poor, Mr. Seward attempted 
and did, many things which could scarcely be justified, 
but for which the administration was held responsi- 
ble. It would be unjust to throw his eccentricities 
and errors upon others, and to award to him the 
honors and credit of successful measures of administra- 
tion which he did not originate. 

The President, never unreasonably obstinate or 
wilful, was ever lenient and forbearing, even when 
his intentions were defeated, and sometimes yielded to 
proceedings that his judgment did not fully approve. 
lu the generosity of his nature he was tolerant of acts 
where a more arbitrary and imperious mind would 
have been implacable and unforgiving. There were 



190 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

occasions, however, when, relying on his own convic- 
tions, and the exigency being great, he exercised the 
executive will — the one-man power — with intelligent 
determination and effect. His promptness and energy 
in an emergency were displayed on one memorable 
occasion, when danger was imminent and immediate 
decision necessary. It may be mentioned as illustra- 
tive of his executive ability, promptness, and self-reli- 
ance ; for it was in the absence of Mr. Seward, and 
when those on whom he had a right to rely failed him 
and were despondent. Gloom and national disaster 
were upon the country, but the President met the 
crisis with firmness, rose with tlie exigency, and in- 
dependent of his Cabinet and against the general sen- 
timent of the people, and by a sacrifice of personal 
feeling, adopted a course which results justified, and 
proved his ability as a chief. 

In the early period of the war the proceedings and 
operations of the military commanders were unsatis- 
factory, and nowhere equalled the genei-al expectation. 
Too much was doubtless expected and too little accom- 
plished. I^one were more disappointed or depressed 
by the slow progress made than the President himself. 
For a period he had hopes from McClellan, whose tal- 
ents at organization were displayed to advantage when, 
in the summer of 1861, he took command at Washing- 
ton, established order, and enforced good military ad- 
ministration. In some respects the President esteemed 
him to be superior to any of the generals with whom 
he had come in contact ; but the autumn and winter 
wore away in dilatory parades. With the change in 
the War Department in January, 18G2, came the hos- 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 191 

tility of Secretary Stanton to McClellan, then Gcner- 
al-in-Cliief. The hesitating movements of that officer 
weakened the confidence of the President in his energy 
and military power. He still believed, however, that 
the general had superior military capacity and intelli- 
gence, but that he was inert, infirm of purpose ; not 
quite ready to do all that he had the ability to accom- 
plish. He required pushing, and the President there- 
fore took upon himself to order a forward movement 
of both the army and navy. But McClellan continued 
tardy, and the winter and spring delays, followed by 
the sluggish movements on the York Peninsula and 
the reverses before Richmond, discouraged and greatly 
disheartened not only the President but the whole 
country. At this juncture, when, with large armies 
under him, he had more than he could perform in the 
line of his profession, McClellan in July WTote from 
his headquarters a very injudicious, not to say, imperti- 
nent letter to the President, in relation to the civil 
administration and the political conduct of affairs. 
This unwise letter, and the reverses of the army, with 
the active hostility of Stanton, brought llalleck, a 
vastly inferior man, to Washington. General Pope 
had preceded him, and, by an executive order creating 
the Army of Virginia, had been placed in command of 
the forces then in front of Washington, to the infinite 
diso^ust of some of the older o^enerals. This disii^ust 
was increased by his public gasconading proclamation 
reflecting on tlie proceedings of his seniors — on their 
"lines of retreat and bases of supplies," which must, 
he said, thenceforward be discarded. These blatant 
bulletins, instead of inspiriting the men, caused ridi- 



102 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

ciile in the ranks. The soldiers were attached to their 
old officers, particularly to McClellan, and to a great 
extent sympathized with him and other generals in 
their dislike, almost contempt, of this junior com- 
mander. Pope had been brought from the West 
directly after Halleck reported he had accomplished 
extraordinary achievements — reports grossly untrue, 
and which Pope himself afterward refuted. On com- 
ing to Washington, Pope, who was ardent, and I think 
courageous, though not always discreet, very naturally 
fell into the views of Secretary Stanton, who improved 
every opportunity to denounce McClellan and his hes- 
itating policy. Pope also reciprocated the commenda- 
tions bestowed on him by Halleck, by uniting with 
Stanton and General Scott in advising that McClellan 
should be superseded, and Halleck placed in charge of 
military affairs at Washington. This, combined with 
the movements and the disasters before Pichmond, and 
his own imprudent letter, enabled Stanton to get rid 
of McClellan at headquarters. One of the first orders 
of Halleck on reaching Washington, after superseding 
McClellan, was for the withdrawal of the Army of the 
Potomac from the vicinity of Pichmond. This recalled 
McClellan and his generals with their commands to 
the assistance of Pope, for whom they not only enter- 
tained no special regard, but some of them absolute 
hate. The orders to reinforce and assist Pope were 
consequently not obeyed with alacrity. There is no 
denying the fact that professional pride was allowed to 
encroach on patriotic duty in that momentous period. 
The selection of Pope to command that army may have 
been injudicious ; he may not have been the man to 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 193 

take in band and wield the immense force which met 
Lee and Jackson at the front ; there may have been 
error on tlie part of Stanton and Ilalleck as well as 
Pope in sligliting some of the older generals ; the 
enmit}^ of the Secretary of War toward McClellan may 
not without reason have been felt by him and his 
favorites as unjust ; yet the welfare of the Republic 
should not have been put in jeopardy to gratify per- 
sonal, official, or professional resentments. The gen- 
eral in command, whether young or old, should at 
such a crisis have been earnestly and in good faith sus- 
tained. Had that been the case, the results of the 
second battle at Manassas or Bull Run might have 
been different. But Pope was defeated, and the army, 
sadly demoralized, came retreating to the Potomac. 
The "War Department, and especially Stanton and 
Halleck, became greatly alarmed. On the 30th of 
August, in the midst of these disasters and before the 
result had reached us, though most damaging informa- 
tion in regard to McClellan, who lingered at Alexan- 
dria, was current, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. 
Chase, called upon me with a protest, signed by him- 
self and Stanton, denouncing the conduct of McClellan 
and demanding his immediate dismissal. Two other 
members were ready to append their names after mine. 
I declined to sign the paper, whicli was in the hand- 
writing of Stanton, not that I did not disapprove of 
the course of the general, but because the combination 
was improper and disrespectful to the President, who 
had selected his Cabinet to consult and advise with, 
not to conspire against him ; besides, some of the 
charges or allusions in the paper I knew nothing of, 
9 



194 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

and I had doubted the wisdom of recalling the Army 
of the Potomac from Richmond, therein differing from 
Chase and Stanton. The object in bringing that army 
back to Washington in order to start anew, march 
overland, and regain the abandoned position, I did not 
understand unless it was to get rid of McClellan ; and 
if that was the object, it would have been much better 
to place another general at the head of the army while 
it was yet on the James. But a majority of the Cab- 
inet finally united in this proceeding. On Monday, 
the 1st of September, the paper, somewhat modified 
and signed by four of the Cabinet officers, was brought 
me. Mr. Seward was at the time absent from Wash- 
ington — I never doubted purposely absent — and not 
of the number. My refusal and perhaps my remarks 
prevented the matter from proceeding further. The 
indifi:nation against McClellan was at the time intense 
in Washington and the country. The President never 
knew of this paper, but was not unaware of the popular 
feeling against that ofiicer in which he sympathized, 
and of the sentiments of the members of the Cabinet, 
aggravated by the hostility and strong, if not exagger- 
ated rumors sent out by the Secretary of War. Both 
Stanton and Halleck were, however, filled with appre- 
hensions beyond others, as the army of stragglers and 
broken battalions on the last of August and first of 
September came rushing toward Washington. 

At the stated Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the 2d 
of Se'ptember, while the whole community was stirred 
up and in confusion, and affairs were gloomy beyond 
anything that had previously occurred, Stanton enter- 
ed the council-room a few moments in advance of Mr. 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. REWARD. 195 

Lincoln and said, with great excitement, he liad just 
learned from General Halleck that the President had 
placed McClellan in command of the forces in Wash- 
ington. The information was surprising, and, in view 
of the prevailing excitement against that officer, alarm- 
ing. The President soon came in, and in answer to 
an inquiry from Mr. Chase, confirmed what Stanton 
had stated. General regret w^as expressed, and Stan- 
ton with some feeling remarked, that no order to that 
effect had issued from the War Department. The 
President, calmly but with some emphasis, said the 
order was his, and he would be responsible for it to 
the country. With a retreating and demoralized army 
tumbling in upon us, and alarm and panic in the com- 
munity, it was necessary, the President said, that 
something should be done, but there seemed to be no 
one to do it. He therefore had directed McClellan, 
who knew this whole ground, who was the best organ- 
izer in the army, whose faculty w^as to organize and 
defend, and who would here act upon the defensive, 
to take this defeated and shattered army and reorgan- 
ize it. He knew full well the infirmities of McClellan, 
who was not an affirmative man ; was worth little for 
an onward movement ; but beyond any other officer 
he had the confidence of the anny, and he could more 
efficiently and speedily reorganize it and put it in con- 
dition than any other general. If the Secretary of 
War, or any member of the Cabinet, would name a 
general that could do this as promptly and well, he 
would appoint him. For an active fighting general 
he was sorry to say McClellan was a failure ; he had 
" the slows" ; was never ready for battle, and probably 



196 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

never would be ; but for this exigency, when organi- 
zation and defence were needed, he considered him 
the best man for the service, and the country must 
have the benefits of his talents though he had behaved 
badly. The President said he had seen and given his 
opinion to General Halleck, who was still General-in 
Chief; but Halleck had no plan or views of his own, 
proposed to do nothing himself, and fully approved 
his calling upon McClellan. 

In stating what he had done the President was de- 
liberate, but firm aud decisive. His language and 
manner were kind and aflfectionate, especially toward 
two of the members who were greatly disturbed ; but 
every person present felt that he was truly the chief, 
and every one knew his decision, though mildly express- 
ed was as fixed and unalterable as if given out with 
the imj)erious command and determined will of An- 
drew Jackson. A long discussion followed, closing 
with acquiescence in the decision of the President, 
but before separating the Secretary of the Treasury 
expressed his apprehension that the reinstatement of 
McClellan would prove a national calamity. 

In this instance the President, unaided by others, 
put forth with firmness and determination the execu- 
tive will — the one-man power — against the temporary 
general sense of the community as well as of his 
Cabinet ; two of whom it has been generally supposed 
had with him an influence almost as great as the Sec- 
retary of State. They had been ready to make issue 
and resign their places unless McClellan was dismiss- 
ed ; but yet knowing their opposition, and in spite of 
it and of the general dissatisfaction in the community, 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 197 

the President had in that perilous moment exalted 
him to new and important trusts. In an interview 
with the President on the succeeding Friday, when 
only he and myself were present, he unburthened his 
mind freely. Military matters were still in confusion, 
without plan or purpose at headquarters. The Secre- 
tary of War, under Pope's defeat and McClellan's re- 
instatement, was not only disappointed, but dejected 
and dispirited. The President said most of our troub- 
les grew out of military jealousies. Whether chang- 
ing the plan of operations (discarding McClellan and 
placing Pope in command in front) was wise or not, 
was not now the matter in hand. These thino:s, riofht 
or wrong, had been done. If the administration had 
erred, the country should not have been made to suf- 
fer nor our brave men been cut down and butchered. 
Pope should have been sustained, but he w^as not. 
These personal and professional quarrels came in. 
Whatever may have been said to the contrary, it could 
not be denied that the army was with McClellan. lie 
bad so skilfully handled his troops in not getting to 
Pichmond as to retain their confidence. The soldiers 
certainly had not transferred their confidence to Pope. 
He could, however, do no more good in this quarter. 
It was humiliating, after what had transpired and all 
we knew, to reward McClellan and those who failed to 
do their whole duty in the hour of trial, but so it 
was. Personal considerations must be sacrificed 
for the public good. He had kept aloof from the 
dissensions that prevailed, and intended to; "but,'* 
said he, " I must have McClellan to reorganize the 
army and bring it out of chaos. There has been a de- 



198 MK. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

sign, a purpose in breaking down Pope, without re- 
gard to the consequences to the country that is atro- 
cious. It is shocking to see and know this, but there 
is no remedy at present. McClellan has the army 
with him." These were the views and this the course 
of the President when there was general dismay in the 
country and confusion in the army ; the rebels near the 
intrenchments of Washington, and some of the Cab- 
inet alarmed and preparing to leave. The President 
was not insensible to the deficiencies or ignorant of the 
faults of McClellan, nor yet blind to, and stubborn as 
regarded his better qualities. In placing him at the 
head of the army he went counter to the wishes of his 
friends, and forgetful of all else he subdued every per- 
sonal feeling, and in the spirit of unselfish patriotism 
resolved to do what was for the true interest of the 
country. Had the general followed up the battle of 
Antietam, which took place a fortnight later, he would 
have retrieved the misfortunes of the peninsula and 
given the President additional reason to congratulate 
himself on the reinstatement ; but the old dilatory in- 
firmity remained, which strengthened the influence 
that persistently opposed him, and soon after led to his 
being retired from the command of the army. 



The President was a much more shrewd and 
accurate observer of the characteristics of men — better 
and more correctly formed an estimate of their power 
and capabilities — than the Secretary of State or most 
others. Tliose in the public service he closely scanned, 
but was deliberate in forminor a conclusion adverse to 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 199 

any one he had appointed. In giving or withdrawing 
C'oniidence he was discriminating and just in his final 
decision ; careful never to wound unnecessarily the 
sensibilities of any for their infirmities, always ready 
to praise, but nevertheless firm and resolute in dis- 
charging the to him, always painful duty of censure, 
reproof, or dismissal. 

Dupont he classed in the naval service with 
McClellan in the military. Both were intelligent, 
accomplished, and valuable ofl^icers in their way, but 
neither was the man for fierce encounter and desperate 
fighting. The two until tried had his support and all 
the confidence to which they were entitled, or which 
either had reason to expect. If the results at Port 
Royal were not followed up with the energy and vigor 
anticipated, the fault was, he justly considered, as 
much with the military as with the navy. But in the 
autumn of 1862 and winter of 1SG3 extensive prepa- 
rations were made for retaking Fort Sumter and the 
capture of Charleston. Dupont visited Washington 
in the autumn, and had consulted on the subject, but 
would listen to no suggestion that any other officer 
should be detailed for that especial service, which he 
claimed as a right and as within the limits of his 
blockade. Extraordinary efforts were accordingly 
made by the Kavy Department, which gave him a 
large portion of the best officers and vessels in the 
service that he mi£:ht be successful. But time wore on, 
with no more effective demonstration than had been 
made by the army of the Potomac on the York 
peninsula. Dupont, like McClellan, was constantly 
asking for more reinforcements, and the Navy Depart- 



200 MR. LINCOLN AND MK. SEWAKD. 

ment strained every nerve to aid him, and often 
answered his requisitions at the expense of other 
squadrons. 

The President, as well as the whole country, felt 
greatly interested in this subject ; not that Charleston 
was of any great strategic importance, but it was the 
hot-bed of secession, and there the rebellion had its ori- 
gin. It was winter or early spring, and nothing had 
been accomplished, when the President one day 
said to me he had but slight expectation that we 
should have any great success from Dupont. "■ He, 
as well as McClellan/' said Mr. Lincoln, " hesitates — 
has * the slows.* McClellan always wanted more regi- 
ments ; Dupont is everlastingly asking for more gun- 
boats — more iron-clads. He will do nothing with any. 
He has intelligence and system, and will maintain a 
good blockade. You did well in selecting him for 
that command, but he will never take Sumter or get 
to Charleston. He is no Farragut, though unquestion- 
ably a good routine officer, who obeys orders and in a 
general way carries out his instructions." A few 
weeks served to verify all that the President had said 
on the subject. Dupont died without planting the 
flag on Sumter or visiting Charleston. 



The views, theories and policy of Mr. Seward so 
far as he had a policy in relation to secession, were at 
the beginning different from the purposes and inten- 
tions of the President and his colleagues in the Cabinet. 
Through the winter of 1861 he possessed extraordi- 
nary opportunities to inform himself of the schemes 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 201 

and intrigues of the secessionists, and also tlie opera- 
tions and designs of the Buchanan Administration as 
well as of the Republicans. In the Senate he had free 
intercourse with all parties, and the fiict, well under- 
stood, that he was to receive the first appointment in 
Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet gave to his opinions weight and 
influence. Leading men of opposing factions courted 
and consulted him, for many, like Mr. Adams, under- 
estimated the capacity and qualities of Mr. Lincoln, 
and assumed that the future Secretary of State would 
be the guiding spirit of the incoming administration. 
It is now well-known that Mr. Stanton, at that time a 
member of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet was impressed 
with this beliei and secretly confided to Mr. Seward 
the consultations and purposes of that administration. 
General Scott also, an old courtier as well as soldier, 
turned to the rising sun and in deference to the new pro- 
jected policy, abandoned his original and sensible pa- 
triotic advice to Mr. Buchanan to garrison the southern 
forts and prepare the government for the threatened out- 
break. Neither Mr. Lincoln nor any of his Cabinet ex- 
cept Mr. Seward, was aware of the schemes which had" 
been maturing for a few months preceding the inaugu- 
ration. Mr. Seward, with whom many of the southern 
leaders held intercourse, was gratified with the atten- 
tion shown him, and, having really no settled convic- 
tions was kindly conciliatory and made concessions and 
promises which he found it difticult to carry fully into 
efiect. Li his speech of the 12th of January he 
expressed his intention " to meet exaction with conces- 
sion," and his readiness to change the Constitution to 
get over difficulties. It has also been claimed and 
9* 



202 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

never denied, while facts go far to confirm the state- 
ment, that he had an understanding with the secession- 
ists to the effect that Sumter and other forts in the 
secedinsr states should be surrendered. In such a 
purpose he entertained no intention of permanent 
disunion, but there are many circumstances which 
indicate that he contemplated temporary separation, 
and a reunion by a national convention to revise the 
constitution, and among other things give new guaran- 
ties to the slave-holding states. A new faith in 
expedients such as in the absence of principle had 
been resorted to by the Albany lobby and made suc- 
cessful in great emergencies. 

On the 10th of April, two days after sending to 
Judge Campbell " Faith as regards Sumter — wait 
and see," he wrote to Mr. Adams : '' Only an imperial 
or despotic government would subjugate thoroughly 
disaffected and insurrectionary members of the state. 
This federal republican system of ours is, of all forms 
of government, the very one which is most unfitted 
for such a labor. Happily however, this is only an 
imaginary defect. The system has, within itself ade- 
quate peaceful, conservative and recuperative forces. 
Firmness on the part of the government in maintain- 
ing and preserving the public institutions and property, 
and in executing the laws where authority can he exer- 
cised without waging war, combined with such meas- 
ures of justice, moderation, and forbearance as will 
disarm reasoning opposition, will be sufficient to secure 
the public safety until returning reflection, concurring 
with the fearful experience of social evils, the inevi- 
table fruits of faction, shall }>ring the recusant mem- 



iT[R. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 203 

hers cheerfully hack into the family^ which, after all, 
must prove their best and happiest, as it undeniably 
is their most natural home. The Constitution of the 
United States provides for that return by authorizing 
Congress, on application to be made by a certain 
majority of the States, to assemble a National Conven- 
tion^ in which the organic law can, if it he needful^ he 
revised so as to remove all real obstacles to a reunion 
so suitable to the habits of the people, and so eminently 
conducive to the common safety and welfare." 

This was the scheme, or policy if it may be so call- 
ed, of Mr. Seward and his conferees at the begin- 
ning, but it was not the policy of Mr. Lincoln. The 
letter to Mr. Adams was prepared, it will be remem- 
bered, at the very time w^ien the squadron to relieve 
Fort Sumter was rendered abortive, by his detaching 
the Powhatan, the flag-ship from the expedition. Mr. 
Lincoln was not a party to the arrangements. They 
were concerted and employed to defeat his efforts to 
use the power of the government to check and break 
down the early movements of the rebels. The nation- 
al forces and authority were ejected from the forts in 
South Carolina and Georgia. The " wayward sisters 
were to go in peace," and be brought back by a National 
Convention, " in which the organic law can be revised, 
so as to remove all real obstacles to a reunion^ 

Without discussing the soundness of the policy in- 
dicated in this letter to Mr. Adams and the facts which 
accord with that policy, it is sufficient to state, and 
subsequent events demonstrate, that it was not the 
policy of Mr. Lincoln, and the administration. In its 
details the course proposed by Mr. Seward conformed to 



204: MK. LINCOLN AND ME. SEWAKD. 

the policy of Buclianan and Black, that a state could 
not be coerced — the union was to be dismembered and 
reunited by a new, or revised constitution. In these 
proceedings, Mr. Seward perplexed, confused and em- 
barrassed, but did not direct affairs of the administra- 
tion. 



The distinctive measure of Mr. Lincoln's Adminis- 
tration, beyond all others, that which makes it an era 
in our national history, is the decree of Emancipation. 
This movement, almost revolutionary, was a step not 
anticipated by him when elected, and which neither 
he nor any of his Cabinet was prepared for, or would 
have assented to when they entered upon their duties. 
He and they had, regardless of party discipline, resist- 
ed the schemes for the extension of slavery into free 
territory under the sanction of federal authority. All 
of them, though of different parties, were and ever 
had been opposed to slavery, but not one of them fa- 
vored any interference with it by the National Gov- 
ernment in the states where it was established or per- 
mitted. The assumption, after the acquisition of ter- 
ritory from Mexico, that slavery was a national and 
not a local institution had opened a new controversy 
in American politics, which contributed to the disin- 
tegration of old party organizations, each of which be- 
came in a measure sectional. The dissenting elements 
resisted the centralizing claim that slavery was national, 
not local ; and ultimately, after a struggle of several 
years, they threw off old party allegiance and com- 
bined under a new organization, thenceforward known 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 205 

as Republican. In the first stages of this movement 
neither Mr. Lincoln nor Mr. Seward participated. 
Both of them had sympathized witli what was known 
as the Free-soil party in 1848, but decHned to become 
identified with it. They w^ere politicians, and not 
then prepared to abandon the organization with which 
they had previously acted. Mr. Lincoln, with the free 
thought and independence of the men of the West, 
less trained and bound to party than the disciplined 
politicians in the old states, holding no official position, 
a quiet but observing and reflecting citizen ; truthful, 
honest, faithful to his convictions, and with the men- 
tal strength and courage to avow and maintain them, 
early appreciated the important principles involved in 
this rising question, and boldly cast ofl' the shackles 
of party in defence of the right, and earnestly, irre- 
spective of any and all parties, opposed the extension 
and aggressions of slavery. Mr. Seward was in those 
days in office, trammelled by party followers and party 
surroundings. Trained during his whole public career 
in the severest discipline of party, indebted to it for 
his high position, always subservient to its decrees and 
requirements, active and exacting in enforcing its ob- 
ligations, he had not the independence and moral 
stamina to free himself from the restraints and despot- 
ism of party, whatever were his sympathies, until the 
AVhig organization disbanded. The people of the 
West, w4io knew Mr. Lincoln and appreciated liis ca- 
pabilities, tried in 185G to phice him on the ticket with 
Fremont as a candidate for Vice-President. Although 
but sliglitly known in the East, such wa^ the zeal and 
entliusiasm in his favor of those who knew liini, that 



206 ME. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

nothing but the expedienc}^ of selecting an Eastern 
man to be associated with Fremont, who was from the 
West, prevented his nomination instead of Dayton. 
From the start he was a prominent Republican cham- 
pion and leader, while Mr. Seward, a partisan politi- 
cian, held off; was reluctant to leave the party with 
which he had been associated, hoping to make the new 
movement subservient to, or a part of the Whig party. 
Mr. Lincoln had no such purpose ; the principles in- 
volved were with him above mere party. With no 
fortune, unaided by metropolitan funds or pecuniary 
assistance from any quarter, he gave his time and 
mind with unstinted devotion to the cause of freedom 
and in his memorable campaign with Douglasfi alone 
and unassisted, he, through the empire State of the 
West, met the Senatorial giant on the questions of the 
extension of slavery, the rights of the states, the grants 
to and limitation of the powers of the general gov- 
ernment, and displayed ability and power which won 
the applause of the country, and drew from Douglas| 
himself expressions of profound respect. 

When the Republicans, in convention at Chicago, 
chose their standard-bearer, they wisely and properly 
selected as their representative, the sincere and able 
man who had no great money-power in his interest, no 
disciplined lobby, no host of party followers, but who, 
like David, contided in the justice of his cause and 
with the simple weapons of truth and right, met the 
Goliath of slavery aggression, before assembled multi- 
tudes, in many a well-contested debate. The popular 
voice was not in error, or its confidence misplaced, 
when it selected and elected Lincoln. 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWAJID. 207 

After his election, and after the war commenced, 
events forced upon him the emancipation of tlie 
Blaves in the rebellions states. It was his own act, 
a bold step, an executive measure originating with him, 
and was, as stated in the memorable appeal at the 
close of the final Proclamation, invoking for it the 
considerate judgment of mankind, warranted alone by 
military necessity. He and the Cabinet were aware 
that the measure involved high and fearful responsi- 
bility, for it would alarm the timid everywhere, and 
alienate, at least for a time, the bold in the border 
states who clung to the Union. The act itself could 
not have been justified or excused, and would never 
have been attempted, had the country been at peace ; 
yet the movement seemed aggravated and more 
hazardous from the fact that the Union was weakened 
and imperilled by civil war. Results have proved that 
there was in the measure profound thought, statesman- 
ship, courage, and far-seeing sagacity — consummate 
executive and administrative ability, which was, after 
some reverses, crowned with success. The nation, 
emerging from gloom and disaster, and the whole 
civilized world, united in awarding honor and gratitude 
to the illustrious man who had the mind to conceive 
and the courage and firmness to decree the emancipa- 
tion of a race. Ten years after this event, when the 
patriot and ^philanthropist who decreed emancipation 
had been years in his grave, an attempt is made on a 
solemn occasion to award to one of his subordinates 
the honor and credit which justly belong to the great 
chief who decreed it. The Albany "Memorial 
Address-' dwells on public measures, particularly 



208 ' MR. LINCOLN AND MK. SEWARD. 

during the war, but makes no allusion to this great act 
of Lincoln, nor to his merits in the cause of freedom, 
for which he labored and in which he died, but de- 
clares that his Secretary of State, a life-long partisan 
politician, was always opposed to slavery, and that he 
" directed affairs for the benefit of the nation, through 
the name of another." It is unnecessary, after what has 
already been said, to comment on this assumed direc- 
tion by a subordinate instead of the chief, or on the 
gross injustice to Mr. Lincoln ; but it should be known 
that the Secretary of State neither originated nor 
directed the affairs of the government on the great- 
measure of emancipation. Mr. Seward was undoubt- 
edly opposed to slavery, and so was every member of 
the administration, but his opposition never led him 
to propose any measure of relief to the country, or to 
take any steps against slavery which would be likely 
to impair the Whig party or the Whig organization 
while it existed. No specific act of his — no measure 
or distinct proposition to emancipate the slaves at any 
time — is mentioned, for there was none. In the 
administration of the government he took no advance 
step on the slavery question. Mr. Lincoln was the 
pioneer and responsible author, while the Secretary 
of State studiously avoided any expression of opinion 
in regard to it. The Secretaries of War and Navy 
were compelled to act in relation to fugitives from 
slavery who sought protection under the Union flag — 
an anomalous question — but they could obtain no 
counsel or advice from the Secretary of State how to 
act. He not only avoided giving an o^^inion, but 
recommended that the administration should abstain 



ME. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWAED. 209 

from any decisive stand on that controverted and 
embarrassing subject. 

The President, who is represented as incompetent 
for his position, and whose mind in 1861, it is said, 
'' had not even opened to the crisis," was rehictant to 
meddle with this disturbing element. Yet earlier 
than others he rightly appreciated what the govern- 
ment would have to encounter, and was convinced 
it must be taken in hand and disposed of. The mag- 
nitude of the rebellion, and the nature of the contest, 
compelled him, after the civil war had been carried on 
for twelve months, to grapple with this formidable 
subject. His first movement, in March 1862, was 
cautious and deliberate, characterized by great pru- 
dence and forethought, and designed not to alarm the 
friends of the Union by any harsh or offensive pro- 
ceeding. It was an ameliorated plan for the gradual 
abolition of slavery by action of the states respectively, 
with the cooperation and assistance of the general 
government. This plan of voluntary and compensated 
emancipation was pressed upon Congress and the 
border slave states, with great earnestness, by the 
President. Mr. Blair and Mr. Bates, both residents 
of the border slave states, were the only members of 
the Cabinet who cordially seconded these first early 
measures in the cause of emancipation. Their asso- 
ciates cheerfully assented to and acquiesced in the 
proposition, but had neither faith nor zeal in its 
success ; nor did Mr. Seward or any one of them sug- 
gest a different or more available plan fur national 
relief. The subject was beset on every side with 
difficulty, requiring for its manipulation and disposi- 



210 MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 

tion the highest order of administrative and executive 
ability. / Ko one more than the President was im- 
pressed with the difficulties to be met, and at the same 
time with the imperative necessity of decisive action. 
The details of these proceedings, and the final deter- 
mined stand taken by him — not by the Secretary of 
State or any of the Cabinet — to decree by an execu- 
tive order the emancipation of the slaves in the rebel- 
lious states, have been elsewhere related. It was 
after all efforts for voluntary emancipation by the 
states interested, with pecuniary aid from the national 
treasury, had failed. To Mr Seward and myself the 
President communicated his purpose, and asked our 
views, on the 13th of July 1862. It was the day 
succeeding his last unsuccessful and hopeless confer- 
ence with the representatives in Congress from the 
border slave states, at a gloomy period of our affairs, 
just after the reverses of our armies under McClellan 
before Richmond. The time, he said, had arrived 
when we must determine whether the slave element 
should be for or against us. Mr. Seward, represented 
as a superior in " native intellectual power," and as 
having forty years previously chosen his side, and as 
at that early period having claimed " a right in the 
government to emancipate slaves," was appalled and 
not prepared for this decisive step, when Mr. Lincoln 
made known to us that he contemplated by an exec- 
utive order, to emancipate the slaves. Startled with 
so broad and radical a proposition, he informed the 
President that the consequences of such an act were 
BO momentous that he was not prepared to advise on 
the subject without further reflection. 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 211 

He had, it will be remembered, only the preced- 
ing year, in his carefully prepared and studied speech 
of the 12th of January 1861, av^owed a policy diametri- 
cally opposed to emancipation by the general govern- 
ment. '* I am willing," said he, on that occasion, *' to 
vote for an amendment to the Constitution declaring that 
it shall not by any future amendment be so altered as to 
confer on Congress a power to abolish or interfere with 
slavery in any state." In addition to this speech on 
the floor of the Senate and in corroboration of it, he, as a 
member of the Senatorial committee of thirteen, pro- 
posed the following amendment to the Federal Consti- 
tution : " 'No amendment shall be made to the Con- 
stitution, which will authorize or give to Congress any 
power to abolish or interfere in any state with the do- 
mestic institutions thereof, including that of persons 
held to service or labor by the laws of said state." 

The President aware of the position taken by Mr. 
Seward and of the embarrassment which he might feel 
in acceding to a measure that conflicted with that posi- 
tion, stated he wished from neither of us a committal, 
but he thought best to make known to us, that emanci- 
patioH appeared to him an inevitable necessity. 

While Mr. Seward hesitated, and had the subject 
under consideration,] the President deliberately pre- 
pared his preliminary proclamation, which met the ap- 
proval, or at least the acquiescence, of the whole Cab- 
inet, though there were phases of opinion not entirely 
in accord with the proceedings. | Mr. Blair, an original 
emancipationist, and committed to the principle, 
thought the time to issue the order inopportune, and 
Mi\ Bates desired that the deportation of the colored 



212 MR. LINCOLN A^D ME. SEWAKD. 

race should be coincident witli emancipation. / Aware 
that there were shades of difference among his coun- 
sellors, and hesitation and doubt with some, in view 
of the vast responsibility and its consequences, the 
President devised his own scheme, held himself alone 
accountable for the act, and, unaided and unassisted, 
prepared each of the proclamations of freedom. I Mr. 
Seward in no way or form originated or was responsi- 
ble for that important measure, did not in any way 
'' direct affairs " in regard to it, was in no other way 
cognizant of it beyond his colleagues, except as com- 
municated to him and myself on the 13th of July, at 
its inception. Yet in the ''Memorial Address," Mr. 
Seward is represented as the life-long opponent of sla- 
very, beyond others the master spirit in the Lincoln 
Administration. The President and this great event 
are ignored, and the inference is intended to be con- 
veyed, that the Secretary of State who " chose his side'' 
in the morning of life adverse to slavery, is entitled to 
the credit ; for it is represented that the President was 
a mere secondary personage, and the Secretary of 
State directed affairs in the name of Mr. Lincoln, who 
was to " reap the honors due chiefly to Mr. Seward's 
labors." 

To unfold the leaves of suppressed history, and 
correct the errors and perversions which interested — 
and many of them still living — persons have spread 
abroad and inculcated, is a thankless task, and will 
subject him who performs it to partisan abuse. It is 
scarcely to be expected that the present generation 
will know or be able to appreciate the labors and acts 
of those who, intrusted with the government in a 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 213 

trying period, took upon themselves immense and 
unprecedented responsibilities, or that a rightful dis- 
crimination will at this early" day, if ever, be made as 
regards those who in the quiet of civil official life par- 
ticipated in the movements which eventuated in the 
salvation of the Union and the emancipation of a race. 
The late labored effort of the distinguished gentleman 
of an historic family and name to depreciate the 
talents and services of Abraham Lincoln, and to crown 
another with honors that justly belong to him, is a 
specimen of lamentable partisan prejudice and error. 
It is but one, and perhaps the last of many attempts 
of a similar character, to take from the brow of Lincoln 
the wreath of merit that is justly his — to deprive him 
of the reward due for his labor, and give to another 
credit for his acts. It is not the first time in our 
history when like injustice has been witnessed toward 
our Chief Magistrates. Volumes have been written 
to prove that Hamilton controlled Washington and 
directed the affairs of the nation in the name of his 
chief. Yan Buren, it was claimed, controlled the 
imperious will of Jackson and dictated his measures. 
Undoubtedly each had influence with his chief, 
perhaps more than he deserved. The same may be 
said of Mr. Seward, who had undeniably influence 
with Mr. Lincoln, but who was no more the directing 
mind of the Administration of Lincoln, but really much 
less, than was Hamilton of Washington or Yan Buren 
of Jackson. Both Hamilton and Seward are charged 
with having given countenance to this false impression, 
which, however, redounds to the credit of neither. 
In these pages written to correct the misconcep- 



2U 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 



tions of Mr. Adams, and the misrepresentations of the 
Albany '* Memorial Address," incidents of what oc- 
curred would, I thought, better than mere contra- 
dictory assertions, illustrate the acts, the executive 
management and administrative ability, as well as the 
capacity and mental energy of the men whose traits 
are involved in the statements which have b§en made. 

Of the incidents that took place during the admin- 
istration of Mr. Lincoln, some of which and the attend- 
ing circumstances could not have been disclosed at the 
time of their occurrence, there are in most cases living 
witnesses. The transactions of an earlier date are of 
public notoriety and matters of record, commencing 
w^ith the organized an ti -masonic proscription, and 
embracing the rise and fall of that and subsequent 
parties, down to, and including the much misrepre- 
sented proceedings of the Chicago Convention in 
1860. 

It has been no part of my purpose to magnify or 
overstate the qualities, or to give undue credit to the 
labors and abilities of Mr. Lincoln, still less to do 
injustice to Mr. Seward, who is represented in the 
"Memorial Address" as overshadowing his chief. 
Mr. Lincoln was in many respects a remarkable, 
though I do not mean to say an infallible man. l^o 
true delineation or photograph of his intellectual 
capacity and attributes has ever been given, nor shall 
I attempt it. His vigorous and rugged, but compre- 
hensive mind, his keen and shrewd sagacity, his 
intellectual strength and mental power, his genial, 
kindly temperament — with charity for all and malice 
towards none — his sincerity, unquestioned honesty and 



MR. LINCOLN AND MR. SEWARD. 215 

homely suavity, made him popular as well as great. 
Had he survived to this day, the Albany " Memorial 
Address" would have been of a different character, 
and its pages not marred with paragraphs which 
reflect on his ability and do injustice to his memory. 



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